The Rome Express
by The Irish Chauffeur
Summary: Eleven or so years after the end of the Irish Civil War, Tom and Sybil Branson, Matthew and Mary Crawley now earl and countess of Grantham, along with all their children embark on an eventful trip to the Continent of Europe. Mayhem ensues. Do please read and review.
1. Chapter 1

The Rome Express

Chapter One

Arrival at Calais

"Da! Da! Is that it? Is that **really** our train?" twelve year old dark haired Danny Branson demanded excitedly. He tugged insistently at the sleeve of his father's grey jacket and pointed in the direction of a long passenger train of dark green coaches standing over on the quayside, its engine impatiently blowing off steam and sending up a column of dirty black smoke into the cloudless blue of the early afternoon sky.

"Is it Uncle Tom?" asked the slim blue eyed, fair haired boy standing next to Danny.

However, before Tom Branson could even begin to reply, the dark haired girl standing next to the two boys promptly voiced her own opinion on the matter now under consideration.

"No of course it isn't, silly! Don't you two know **anything**?" she said with a superior air of contemptuous disdain, at the same time holding tightly on to her straw hat to prevent it blowing off her head and into the sea, her light blue print dress billowing in the stiff breeze.

Apart from her father whom she adored, and her Uncle Matthew whom she respected, not because he was the sixth earl of Grantham, but because her father and Uncle Matthew were such good friends, aged all of ten years young Saiorse Branson already had little time for the male of the species, and that healthy disdain extended to both of her brothers, Danny who was a year older than she, and Bobby four years younger, as well as to her two cousins Robert and Simon Crawley, aged eleven and nine respectively.

Saiorse Branson didn't have much time either for her youngest cousin, Rebecca Crawley, who at five years old was, unsurprisingly, only interested in dolls. Saiorse sincerely hoped that Rebecca would soon grow out of this particular, as she saw it frankly annoying, phase of her childhood, but Saiorse had her doubts. After all, when **she** was five years old, she had sat on her father's work bench in the garage at their house in Blackrock in Dublin, and one by one handed him his tools, while he was repairing the engine of the family's Flat Nose Morris Cowley. So, Saiorse didn't see why, at the same age, her cousin Rebecca couldn't jolly well do so too and help Uncle Matthew repair his Rolls Royce. Only of course, that seemed very unlikely, partly because Rolls Royces never ever seemed to break down and also because, as her father had tried patiently to explain to her on more than one occasion, if the one belonging to Uncle Matthew ever did have problems, then her uncle had someone called a chauffeur to undertake the necessary repairs for him.

In fact, come to think of it, not only Uncle Matthew, but all the Crawleys, even her cousins, had all kinds of people to do all sorts of things for them. There was someone called Barrow who was a... butler, who seemed to spend his entire life opening doors and serving food. Why that was necessary, Saiorse couldn't even begin to imagine. After all, couldn't Uncle Matthew and Aunt Mary open doors for themselves? Neither of them was... What was the word Ma had used to describe the soldier, the man without any legs, whom they had seen down by the Pillar in Dublin while they were waiting for the tram back out to Blackrock? Ma said he had must have lost his legs in something she called the Great War and had given him some money from out of her purse. Oh, yes, disabled. That was it.

Well, neither Uncle Matthew nor Aunt Mary was disabled and neither were their children. In fact, Saiorse knew that to be true, at least of Uncle Matthew, because, one afternoon, when they were all staying at Downton Abbey last Christmas, Saiorse had seen him open and close doors for himself not once, but several times, although only when Aunt Mary was out: she had gone into Ripon with Ma and Aunt Edith to do some shopping - and have a good gossip - or so said Da.

There'd been some kind of fuss about the trip too remembered Saiorse, because Austin the old chauffeur was ill and Aunt Mary had suggested in all seriousness that Da could drive them into Ripon. Ma had said Da had better things to do with his time, that he wasn't the bloody chauffeur any more, and in any case Aunt Edith knew how to drive, so there was an end to it: Aunt Edith would drive them or they wouldn't be going anywhere, which was how Aunt Edith came to drive Ma and Aunt Mary into Ripon and how Uncle Matthew learned how to open and close doors. In fact, he did it all that afternoon, but only until the Rolls returned from Ripon, when suddenly he seemed to forget what he had learned and Barrow began opening and closing doors for him once again as he had done before.

And why couldn't her uncle and aunt serve themselves their own food, just like Da and Ma and they all did back at home in Dublin? The Crawleys even had someone, the appropriately named Mrs. Fry, to cook all their meals, and although Saiorse had to admit that her Ma wasn't much of a cook, in fact on more than one occasion Da had referred to her cooked meals as "burnt offerings", Da was a dab hand when it came to cooking.

In any case, even if Ma wasn't much good at cooking, she was a very good nurse. She was matron of her ward down at the Coombe and Aunt Mary didn't even have a job, unless being a countess was a job. But if so, Saiorse wasn't quite sure what that entailed. In any case, Aunt Mary always seemed to have a very great deal of time on her hands, so surely she could learn how to cook, couldn't she? And with so much spare time, couldn't she put Rebecca to bed herself, rather than have a nanny do it for her? Ma had always put Saiorse to bed herself when she was little except when she was working late, when Da did so. And, if they could do that for her, then why couldn't Aunt Mary or Uncle Matthew do the very same for Rebecca? Saiorse sighed. At ten years old, the world seemed to be such a very complicated place.

Standing by the ship's rail of the Southern Railway's S.S. Canterbury, the black hulled, single buff stack steamer, which had brought both the Bransons and the Crawleys all the way from Dover to Calais across the choppy waters of the English Channel, breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief - he had never been a good sailor - Tom Branson, deputy editor of the Irish Independent, looked out across the calmer waters of the harbour at Calais, and towards the elegant central clock tower and the red tiled roofs of the cream coloured stone buildings of the Gare Maritime rising up behind the train now standing on the quayside. But, as he made to answer both his son's question and that of his nephew, once again, and in a comparatively short space of time, he was prevented from doing so, now by the softly spoken voice of a tall, fair haired man with piercing blue eyes, who had come to stand behind the group of children.

"In fact, you're both right" said the man. Holding onto the hand of his equally fair haired younger son Simon, Matthew Crawley sixth earl of Grantham was ever a peace maker, appropriately enough, since earlier in the year, he had addressed a plenary session of the League of Nations in Geneva in Switzerland.

As deputy editor of the Indy, through one of his numerous and varied contacts, Tom had learned that his brother-in-law Matthew, someone for whom he had always had both the greatest liking and respect, was presently being considered for an ambassadorial position by the British government, in the Balkans, or so it was said, that powder keg of rival nationalities, forever, or so it seemed, a hotbed of international intrigues rivalries, and tensions; though if that was indeed the case, then true to form, Matthew had discretely kept to his own counsel on the matter. Not that Tom would be at all surprised, thought his brother-in-law eminently suited to such a role.

Unassuming, unfailingly courteous, modest, intelligent, and extremely well informed, the previous Christmas at Downton Abbey, after dinner, and over a something as prosaic as a game of billiards, Matthew Crawley, sixth earl of Grantham had made his own position very clear to Tom Branson, his dearly loved Irish republican brother-in-law: there must **never **be another European war. The last, said Matthew, had blighted, some indeed would say wiped out, an entire generation, so if he was called upon to play his part, however small, in ensuring that such a catastrophe never ever occurred again, then so be it.

And, after all, as Matthew had so laconically observed, both he and Tom both now had a very vested interest in ensuring that such an appalling event never happened: each of them had a pair of young sons asleep upstairs. Another war, opinioned Matthew, would not just be fought across the Channel over in Belgium and France; with modern man's cursed capacity for developing weapons capable of inflicting untold horror and suffering, this time, even if the Irish Free State kept, as seemed likely, to a position of neutrality, such a conflict should it ever come to pass, would come dropping its lethal calling cards of mass destruction much closer to home, threaten everything they both held dear with complete obliteration.

For his part, although thankfully because of his weak heart, Tom had not been called upon to fight during the Great War, he had always had an innate hatred of both bloodshed and fighting; had seen for himself too much of both in the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War which had followed hard upon its heels, both of which had come close to destroying the country he cared so passionately about, and which, for the time being at least, had split asunder the island of Ireland into the Free State in the south and Northern Ireland, still and for the foreseeable future, part of the United Kingdom, in the north. However even if, as Matthew so astutely observed, the Irish Free State did pursue a policy of neutrality vis-à-vis another European war, the present artificial division of his own country gave Tom equal cause for concern. He knew it could not last; was storing up a legacy of bitterness and hatred on both sides and he feared very much what the future would bring.

Soft footfalls sounded behind them. Tom and Matthew both turned instinctively and smiled broadly on seeing their two beautiful wives approaching them along the polished planking of the ship's promenade deck.

"Where's Becky?" asked Matthew, noticing immediately that his young daughter was not with either her mother or her aunt. He saw Mary wince; knew straightaway what it was that had upset his wife. Although he himself didn't mind, Mary hated the use of the diminutives of her children's names. For her, Robert was always Robert, not as might be expected so as to avoid confusion with his cousin or out of respect for his late grandfather either, but simply because Robert was his given name, just as Simon was always Simon and Rebecca...

"I left **Rebecca** sleeping down below in the cabin with nanny" explained Mary. "Are you feeling any better, Tom?" asked his sister-in-law solicitously.

"Much; thanks Mary. That pill Sybil gave me helped a great deal. I didn't feel half as bad as I thought I would. Mind you, I'll still be very glad to set foot on land again, even if it is French soil!"

"I'm glad it worked love" said Sybil. She slipped an arm around her husband's waist, gazed out across the waters of the harbour. "This reminds me so much of when we first arrived in Kingstown all those years ago".

"You mean **Dún Laoghaire**".With a chuckle,Tom corrected her.

"No" laughed Sybil. "I mean Kingstown. That's what it was called when I first saw it, whatever it may be called now!"

"And in answer to your questions boys, that's the train that will take us as far as Paris" said Matthew.

"See!" said Saiorse. "I **knew **it wasn't the train to Rome".

Matthew smiled fondly at his niece. In many ways she was so like darling Sybil, her mother; she spoke her mind and didn't care what anyone else said or thought to the contrary.

"But the two coaches at the end of the train - the dark blue ones - that's where we'll be sleeping tonight and they'll go all the way with us to Rome".

Robert stuck out his tongue at Saiorse.

"See! You weren't right either!"

"Was!"

"Wasn't!"  
"Robert! That is no way to behave" admonished his mother. "As the future earl of Grantham, you should know how to conduct yourself in public! Just think what your dear grandpapa would have said, if he was still alive, what your grandmamma **would** say, if either of them saw you doing what you've just done!"

"I'm sorry mama" said Robert seemingly abject and contrite. He looked down at his sandaled feet, at the heaving deck, indeed anywhere, rather than meet his mother's imperious gaze.

Sybil and Tom shot each other an amused glance. Dearest Mary, she was always such a stickler for both good manners and protocol. As Sybil once acutely observed, if darling Mary had been on the Titanic, she would have given up her seat in a lifeboat rather than sit next to someone from steerage.

By now the S.S. Canterbury was drawing smartly alongside the quay, at which point someone down on the quayside began to wave frantically up at them all and in doing so caught Robert's mother's and the other adults' attention, whereupon Robert promptly stuck out his tongue at Saiorse once again. He really didn't like his cousin, Little Miss Smarty Pants, that much, if at all, although his brother Simon seemed to rub along with Saiorse very well. But then, in Robert's considered opinion, his younger brother was a bit soft in the head.

"It can't be!" exclaimed Sybil with a laugh.

"It damned well is!" observed Mary.

"You're bloody right! It is!" Tom grinned.

"Well, so it is" observed Matthew rather more diplomatically.

And with realisation now at last having dawned upon all four of them, each began to wave enthusiastically back, although it must be admitted Matthew rather less exuberantly than the other three, at the smartly dressed woman standing on the quayside below.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Endings And A Beginning

With the S.S. Canterbury at last now finally securely moored both fore and aft to several of the large cast iron bollards lining the quayside, here in Calais, the slightly delayed disembarkation of the steamer's passengers and the unloading of their luggage now began in earnest.

"Well who'd have thought it? That really is a turn up for the books!" laughed Tom.

Along with many of the other passengers on board the steamer, together the Bransons and the Crawleys now duly trooped across the promenade deck and began the slow process of descending one of the several steep flights of stairs which led down to the passenger saloons and the main deck from where access was gained to the narrow canvas sided gangways which in turn led onto the quayside itself.

"Agreed!" laughed Mary, half turning on the stairs. "Matthew, darling, where's Si..."

"Simon's here with me" replied Matthew.

With Oscar his teddy bear clutched firmly under his right arm, holding tightly onto his father's hand, standing waiting on the crowded staircase several steps above Mary, young Simon smiled shyly down upon his aristocratic, beautiful mother, always so immaculately coiffured and stylishly attired, of whom, if the truth be told, he was rather in awe. As did his elder brother Robert and his younger sister Rebecca, Simon both liked and respected his mother, but it was their aunt Sybil whom the Crawley children all loved.

Mary nodded disinterestedly at her younger son, casting an airy backward glance over her left shoulder to see nanny with Rebecca in tow, closely followed by Mary's own maid Hodges, slowly descending the flight of stairs immediately above the one on which the rest of the family were now waiting. Somewhat stout of build, and because of which, behind her back, Robert and Simon had taken to calling her "Podgy Hodgy", or simply just "Podge", Hodges was clearly finding the steep, narrow stairs on board the steamer something of a trial.

"Hey! Danny lad, not so fast now! Wait for me" called his father.

"But Da, Rob and I want to go see that big crane down on the quayside, the one you pointed out, and then have a good look at the engine".

Tom grinned broadly, thinking just what his haughty sister-in-law the countess of Grantham would have to say when she found her eldest son, the heir to the Downton estate, examining at close quarters the dirty, greasy, oily workings of a French steam locomotive. In all likelihood, Mary's considered opinion of the matter would be quite unrepeatable.

After all, Mary had been not inconsiderably annoyed when she found out that Tom had quietly purchased Danny and Robert a bag of gobstoppers each at Victoria station while they were all awaiting the train to Dover Marine.

When reprimanded by his mother for eating in public and asked by her exactly what it was he had in his mouth, young Robert, rendered temporarily incapable of coherent speech by the presence of a gobstopper, had then made the singular mistake of offering one to his mother. Mary's eyebrows had shot heavenwards towards the arching glass roof of the station while Matthew then proceeded to make things worse by admitting, with a sly wink to his elder son, that he himself was rather partial to gobstoppers too; whereupon Danny had immediately offered one to his uncle which, to Mary's absolute horror, Matthew, with thanks and a broad grin, promptly took and popped into his own mouth.

And, it was well known in the family that if there was anything remotely mechanical available for inspection, then Danny and his cousin Robert made a beeline for it. In tacit recognition of this incontrovertible fact, last Christmas, Matthew and Mary had bought each of the boys a Number 7 set of Meccano. After Christmas lunch was over, and all their presents unwrapped, the boys' late grandfather's large desk in the Library at Downton - Matthew preferred to use the one in the Small Library - was duly commandeered, cleared of its clutter of blotter, papers, pens, inkstand and photographs. Thereafter, and in no time at all, the desk was transformed into something resembling the shipyards of Harland and Wolff in Belfast; littered with all manner of dark green metal strips and girders, brass screws, nuts, bolts, wheels, and gears.

Watching their eldest sons and their fathers setting about constructing a pair of battleships, and seemingly completely lost in a world of their own, Mary and Sybil found themselves wondering whether Matthew and Tom would have much preferred a set of Meccano themselves rather than the Christmas presents which they had received.

Sitting next to her daughters on the sofa by the fireplace, their mother Cora, now Dowager Countess of Grantham and but widowed scarce six months, smiled, remarking to Mary and Sybil that Robert himself would have dearly loved to have seen what was now taking place on his hallowed desk, would no doubt have joined in whole heartedly with all the fun now unfolding, although what the late Dowager Countess would have made of it all was anyone's guess.

Robert's mother Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, had passed away in 1926, the year of the General Strike. She had enjoyed a long life, but the world she had known, that of wealth and privilege, along with its accompanying strict social hierarchy, where everyone knew their place, was fast passing into history. Of course, Violet being Violet she did her very best to try and stem the flood of what she saw as Red Revolution, leaving handsome legacies to her three grand-daughters, their husbands, and those of her great grand children that she lived to see born. Violet even made financial provision for her old sparring partner, Matthew's mother.

But, said Isobel, if by so doing the late Dowager Countess expected her to be forever in Violet's debt, she was having none of it, and promptly donated the not inconsiderable sum to the local cottage hospital for the provision of a small but fully equipped operating theatre.

However, Isobel saw to it that Violet's part in all this local munificence was duly recognised by the erection of a small, some might even say, insignificant, stone plaque commemorating the fact, which was then mounted prominently on the west wall of the newly opened operating theatre. Unfortunately, the prominence of the plaque, in the middle of a large expanse of wall, merely served to emphasise how small it actually was.

IN GRATEFUL THANKS

ON THE DEATH OF VIOLET CRAWLEY, LATE DOWAGER COUNTESS OF GRANTHAM, THIS OPERATING THEATRE AND EQUIPMENT WERE PROVIDED BY MONIES GENEROUSLY GIVEN BY MRS ISOBEL CRAWLEY.

1927

The unveiling of the commemorative plaque was met with a stunned silence on the part of all the assembled members of the Crawley family, with everyone realising the same thing; which it fell to Matthew to duly put into words. There was, he said, something missing after the third word. As presently carved, said Matthew, the wording implied that one and all were glad to see the back of the Dowager Countess, which was surely not what his mother had intended.

"Perish the thought" replied Isobel and promptly said that she would arrange for the local stone mason to be duly summoned to rectify the omission. Five years later when the Bransons and the Crawleys left England for the Continent, the missing comma was still conspicuous by its absence.

That the world Robert's late mother had known was disappearing into history did not go unnoticed, even by her own son. For whether Robert Crawley liked it or not, and not surprisingly he didn't, things would never return to the way they had been before the Great War. That appalling conflict, with its senseless squandering of the lives of an entire generation of young men, had altered everything irrevocably; destroyed all the old certainties, and swept empires which had existed for centuries from off the face of Europe forever.

In the face of such monumental change, all the fifth earl of Grantham could do was try and ensure that Downton weathered the coming storm rather than succumb to the winds of change as had several of the neighbouring estates, now sold off, the families who once owned them moved elsewhere to more modest dwellings, the large houses themselves demolished or else turned into hotels, their ancestral contents dispersed to the four winds.

Haxby, which Mary and Sir Richard Carlisle had once considered purchasing as their family home, was a good case in point; was now in use as an asylum. After Mary broke off her engagement to him, Carlisle had eventually married and had a family, but from all accounts the marriage was not a happy one. Then, in 1928, having had a vote of no confidence passed in him by his board of directors, he lost control of much of the business empire he had been at such pains to build up. Thereafter, having also lost very heavily in the crash of 1929, towards the end of that same year Carlisle put a pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger. On hearing of his passing, Mary's expressions of regret were, to say the least, perfunctory.

During the 1920s, Robert himself had gradually mellowed, had come to realise that whatever their backgrounds, what indisputably fine men both his sons-in-law were, now recognised that when two people loved each other, then class really did not matter one iota. Whether or not he agreed with the politics of his Irish son-in-law, and of course he didn't, Robert was very proud indeed of Tom Branson's success as a journalist and when, in 1929, Tom became deputy editor of the Irish Independent, Robert's congratulatory telegram was so effusive, that Tom had it framed and placed in a position of honour behind his desk in his office in Talbot Street.

Robert was equally very proud of what Matthew had achieved for Downton, not just a massive injection of sorely needed new capital, but overseeing the gradual modernisation of the estate for the benefit not only of the Crawleys, but also for their tenants by way of long overdue improvements to the cottages and the farms. Whether the latter had anything to do with Tom Branson's Socialist influence, Robert never knew. What he did know was that both Tom and Matthew were as thick as thieves; indeed had been ever since, at short notice, Tom had stood in for Matthew as his Best Man back in the spring of 1920.

Certainly an unlikely pairing, in Tom's own words "for sure"- that of the middle class solicitor from Manchester and the Irish republican journalist from Dublin, but there was no denying that it was a deep and lasting friendship based on mutual admiration, genuine feeling, and heartfelt respect. In Tom and Matthew, Robert came to realise that both Sybil and Mary had found kindred spirits. And, hardly surprisingly, each of his sons-in-law worshipped the very ground on which their wives both walked.

He was equally proud of his daughters too. Despite parental opposition, through her own feisty tenacity and refusal to conform, Sybil had carved out a nursing career for herself, and was now matron of a ward in the Coombe hospital over in Dublin and the mother of three children, while Mary likewise a mother of three, had proved to be of inestimable support to Matthew during his modernisation of the Downton Abbey estate.

It was such a shame, thought Robert that Edith had never found a man to love as had her two sisters. Her ill starred involvement with Sir Anthony Strallan had produced nothing but heartbreak on both sides, which may have accounted for, at least in part, her deep love of all her nephews and nieces, as an antidote to her own thwarted maternal instincts, and also to her all consuming lately developed interest in archaeology, which for Edith became something of a passion and which took her to increasingly far flung parts of the British Empire.

Edith was there in the Valley of the Kings in November 1922, when Howard Carter discovered the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun, spent several seasons excavating in the newly created kingdom of Iraq, was in Baghdad along with Gertrude Bell for the opening of the new Archaeological Museum there in June 1926, and thereafter with Flinders Petrie at Luxor in 1928, and in 1930, having returned to Iraq was working with Max Mallowan and his wife the novelist Agatha Christie at Ur. And in 1932 when the Bransons and the Crawleys all arrived in Calais to catch the Rome Express to begin their trip to Italy, Edith was in Palestine, excavating a Roman temple.

As Mary pithily remarked one evening over dinner, given Edith's obsession with old relics, was it any wonder that she had fallen for Sir Anthony Strallan? It was said Mary such a shame that their wedding had never taken place, for given the considerable differences in their respective ages it was more than likely that Edith would have survived Strallan by many years. After a suitable interval had elapsed, continued Mary, no doubt Edith would have been quite content to have dug the old duffer up and presented him to the city museum in York.

Whether Branson or Crawley, Robert Crawley adored all his grandchildren in equal measure, but if he could be said to have had a favourite, something which he himself would never ever have admitted to, then undoubtedly he was most fond of his eldest grandson, Danny Branson, to whom at the early age of seven, Robert had taught fly fishing, first in the lake at Downton and thereafter in fast flowing streams elsewhere on the estate.

And it was in the summer of 1931, while out alone with Danny on just one such fly fishing expedition, that Robert suffered a fatal heart attack. Young Danny had raised the alarm, by running like the wind to the nearest farm, but by the time Matthew, Tom, and a group of workers from the estate had reached the isolated spot, it was too late. According to Danny, who was found kneeling by his grandfather's body, sobbing inconsolably, Robert's very last words had gone not to his wife, not to his daughters, not even to Matthew, but to Tom.

"_And ... t...tell... your Da... wheezed Robert gasping for breath._

"_Tell Da what Grandpapa?" asked Danny fighting back his tears._

"_Tell your Da that I love him". _

Of course, all the family had been stunned by the unexpected suddenness of Robert's death, but none more so than Tom on learning that his father-in-law's very last words had been for him.

That autumn, a dignified memorial service was held for Robert in the parish church of St. Mary at Downton. Long after the service was over and the family and all the other mourners had returned to the abbey, telling Sybil that there was something he had to do - she never asked him what, in fact she probably guessed - Tom had slipped quietly out of the great house and made his way back down to the church.

There in the quiet and the lengthening shadows, standing alone before his late father-in-law's newly erected memorial tablet, with tears running down his cheeks, Tom Branson, ex-chauffeur and Irish republican journalist made his own private heartfelt last farewell to Robert Crawley, fifth earl of Grantham.

**Author's Note:**

Probably the best known and most loved of all cross-Channel ferries, launched in 1928, the S.S. Canterbury was owned by the Southern Railway. Later she would help rescue British troops from Dunkirk in 1940 and took part in the D-Day Landings in 1944. She was scrapped in 1965.

The Number 7 set of Meccano mentioned above was the largest one then available and much sought after. Of course, in the 1930s, the cost of such toys still placed them beyond the reach of the mass of the population.

The General Strike lasted for ten days in May 1926. Mounted in a vain attempt to try and force the British government to stop a reduction in wages and worsening working conditions for 800,000 locked-out coal miners, it was supported by some 1.7 million workers, mainly those in transport and heavy industry.

The 1920s saw many archaeological excavations, of which the most famous was undoubtedly the discovery, in 1922, by Howard Carter, of the tomb of the boy pharaoh Tutankhamun. That particular excavation was funded by none other than George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, fifth Earl of Carnarvon, DL (1866 – 1923), then owner of Highclere Castle, which today is known the world over as the setting for the fictional Downton Abbey.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was established in 1921 and lasted until 1958 when the monarchy was overthrown in a bloody military coup.

Max Mallowan was a very famous archaeologist and became (in 1930) the second husband of the renowned novelist Agatha Christie.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

An Unexpected Rendezvous

"All in good time Danny lad!" said Tom. "Along with all the rest of France, those cranes and the engine will both still be there when we get off. At least, I hope they will! Now, son, these stairs are steep so mind what... Saiorse, darlin' don't push!"

"I'm not Da! Robert pushed me!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!"

"Didn't!"

"Did!"

"Now just stop it the pair of you!" exclaimed Mary. "Honestly! Any more of this squabbling and I'll pack the both of you back off to Downton with nanny!"

"Well I don't live there, so that's just fine by me!" retorted Saiorse promptly.

"Saiorse! Don't you dare speak like that to your aunt! Apologise this instant! And I don't mean some time next week, but now! Understood?" responded Sybil just as smartly.

Saiorse flushed.

"It was Robert that started..."  
"I'm not remotely interested in what Robert did or didn't do. I will not have you speak to your aunt, or to anyone else, in that fashion, now is that clear?" demanded Sybil. "And just remember, if there's any repetition of this nonsense, from any of you, not only can nanny travel back to Downton, she can just as easily travel onto Dublin! Can't you nanny?"

"Yes mum. If you, or Her Ladyship, just say the word!" Nanny Bridges nodded her head slowly in confirmation; eyed in turn all of the children sternly.

Saiorse looked mutinously at her mother. She knew her adored father would never dare do such a thing, but much as she loved her mother, well, with Ma, it was better not to push things too far.

"I'm waiting Saiorse" said Sybil. "And so, is Aunt Mary".

"Yes Ma" nodded Sybil's daughter miserably.

"Then, please do as I have asked you, and apologise".

"I'm sorry Aunt Mary" Saiorse mumbled.

"Apology accepted" said Mary quickly. Her dark eyes flashed momentarily and but for an instant, those same eyes met those of Sybil over Saiorse head. The two sisters grinned at each other ruefully.

"I'm sorry, Sybil, I shouldn't have snapped at Saiorse like that, but honestly when these two are together, it's enough to try the patience of a saint - which of course I'm not. As well you know!" She laughed.

"And just remember, all of you, what I said about nanny and Dublin!" ended Sybil.

"Ma! You wouldn't, would you?" asked young Bobby nervously, his eyes watering.

"Wouldn't what, darling/"  
"Send me back to Dublin!"

"No of course not Button!" laughed Sybil hugging her youngest child tightly to her. Christened Robert Joseph, but always called Bobby, the little lad had acquired his nickname of Button from Ma, Tom's adoptive mother, when the little boy proved, just like his Da, to be so precocious in all manner of things

"Why, you're just like your Da, bright as a button!" had said Ma and the nickname bestowed by accident upon the happy, laughing little boy, who of Sybil and Tom's three children looked most like Tom, had somehow stuck.

To Tom's great distress, and that of Sybil too, Ma herself had passed away in 1929, living just long enough to see her adopted son, of whom she was inordinately proud, become deputy editor of the Irish Independent. Her passing, at the age of seventy five, although not unexpected, had served to put something of a damper of what otherwise should have been a very happy occasion, which was perhaps why Tom had been so moved by Robert's effusive telegram, congratulating him upon his new appointment.

Ciaran and Aislin were still at the farm, but their brood of five children, with the exception of young Riordan who at eleven was but a year or so younger than Danny, had now all grown up. Ruari the young, good looking, dark haired boy who, at thirteen years old, had been so smitten with Sybil and who had learned to dance the foxtrot at her instruction in his father's barn at Christmas 1919 was now twenty five, married, with two young sons of his own, working as an engineer for the Great Southern Railway, and still, all these years later with a very soft spot both for his Uncle Tom and especially for Aunt Sybil.

Ruari's pretty young wife was none other than the eldest of old Mrs. O'Neill's grand-daughters for whom he carried crates into her grandmother's store room at the back of her shop down in Clontarf. Not surprisingly, throughout his life, Ruari always retained a special fondness for ginger beer.

Ruari's younger brother Ronan was also married, working alongside his father at the farm and living with his wife, with a baby on the way, in a tenanted cottage on the Clontarf Castle estate. He hoped to take over the tenancy of the farm when Ciaran felt no longer able to carry on with it. No-one was getting any younger.

While both still living at home, although for how much longer remained to be seen, Mairead and Rosaleen were courting, or so said Aislin. Mairead was working for 2RN, the first radio broadcasting station in the Irish Free State, which now operated from the recently restored General Post Office building on O'Connell, formerly Sackville, Street. Rosaleen had followed in the footsteps of her Aunt Sybil and was training to be a nurse at the Rotunda hospital over on Parnell Street.

And even at eighteen, Padraig, Donal and Niamh's son, now following in the footsteps of his Uncle Tom and working as a cub reporter with the Irish Independent, still had a fascination with dragons, and, if the truth be told, hoped one day to find one. When Padraig had landed the job at the Indy, naturally there was talk in the Talbot Street offices, that his uncle had pulled strings, but Tom denied doing any such thing and said to have done so would have made him a hypocrite. Padraig, he said, had got the position on his own merits.

Following Peadar's death at the hands of the British in Kilmainham Gaol, as the years had passed, Emer had gradually drawn more and more into herself. She never remarried, and in 1923 had joined the Sisters of Charity who ran both St. Vincent's Hospital on St. Stephen's Green as well as the Magdalene asylums scattered throughout the city. For her part, Ma thought it a waste of Emer's life, but had to admit that her daughter found her new vocation both challenging and fulfilling.

By now, the initial steady trickle of passengers disembarking in a more or less leisurely fashion down the stairways and gangways of the S.S. Canterbury had turned into a veritable, but still orderly flood, among which in its midst were to be found both the Bransons and the Crawleys; while on the quayside, its engine impatiently blowing off steam, the dark green empty carriages of the Paris portion of the Rome Express now awaited their eager passengers.

Back on board the Canterbury, the cargo hatches of the steamer had been thrown open and, accompanied by raucous shouts, sprinkled with profanities in both English and French, punctuated in turn by blasts on steam whistles, the two cranes, which had so excited young Danny Branson as the Canterbury had nosed into the harbour at Calais, now swung into action. Moments later, they were busily engaged offloading all kinds of cargo from the steamer, chiefly of course luggage belonging to the passengers booked on the Rome Express, a disparate consignment of steamer trunks, portmanteaux, numerous leather suitcases, packages, parcels, as well as bulging sacks of mail, wooden crates and packing chests, all bound for the luggage vans of the waiting train.

Meanwhile, stewards from the Canterbury, resplendent in their immaculate white, brass buttoned tunics, carried down the gangways to waiting railway trolleys that small amount of hand luggage considered absolutely indispensable to them by their owners, even during the comparatively short afternoon journey to Paris; the loaded trolleys being in turn drawn to the appropriate carriages and there offloaded by uniformed porters of the Chemins de Fer du Nord, where in due course the requisite items deemed so essential were reunited with their owners and then either promptly stowed away on luggage racks or else not opened until the train reached the Gare du Nord in Paris later that very same afternoon.

With the brief formalities demanded by French customs now duly completed - along with their fellow passengers, the Bransons and the Crawleys had already shown their passports at Dover - the officer on duty came smartly to attention, saluting both Matthew and Mary, bidding "Monsieur le comte et Madame la comtesse de Grantham, bienvenue en France" with Tom muttering good naturedly behind them to Sybil that the officer hadn't seen fit to salute him, a citizen of a fellow republic in all but name.

With a grin and in a stage whisper especially for her much loved brother-in-law's benefit, Mary had then remarked to Matthew that it was so very gratifying when people of quality were recognised and accorded the appropriate respect their position demanded. It was perhaps for the best that Tom's pithy retort about the French Revolution, the nobility, and Madame La Guillotine was drowned out by a sudden sonorous blast on the ship's whistle of the Canterbury!

Thereafter, along with the other passengers, the Bransons and the Crawleys walked the short distance to their waiting train, and as they did so, standing by their compartment, it was now, at last, that they finally encountered the woman the adults had seen but a short while ago from the boat deck of the Canterbury.

It was young Robert who saw her first.

"Look everybody! Look!" he shouted excitedly, earning himself in the process a rebuke from his mother about making a display of himself in public. "It's Aunt Edith!" And, so indeed it was. But moments later, Edith found herself smothered in hugs and kisses from all of her nephews and nieces, each of them vying for her undivided attention.

"Edith, darling, what on earth are you doing here?" asked Mary. Despite the seriousness of her question, her tone was one of abject and bored disinterest. If Edith really wanted to spend her life away from them all living in some fly blown tent in the middle of nowhere in the Arabian desert, that was her affair. The two sisters embraced lightly and exchanged the most perfunctory of kisses.

"From your last letter, we understood you were in Palestine for the next few months".

"I was, or rather I was supposed to have been" said Edith, "but there were some local difficulties and the dig there ended rather sooner than we... than I envisaged".

Mary didn't bother to pursue the nature of the local difficulties which had brought the dig in Palestine to such an abrupt and early end, nor did she ask what or who it was Edith had been excavating at Petra. She reasoned it couldn't be Strallan who had died a few months ago, not at Petra wherever that was, but in a nursing home at Scarborough over on the Yorkshire coast. From all accounts, he had been decidedly decrepit by the end but, despite now being definitely both dead and buried, was, thought Mary, presumably not yet ancient enough to merit the attentions of Edith's spade and trowel.

"But that still doesn't explain why you're here now".

"There were some papers in the library of the Archaeological Institute in Vienna which I wanted to read up on before going back out to Iraq. The Mallowans have closed down the excavation at Nineveh, at least for the time being, so I travelled down to Cairo, took the train to Alexandria, and flew back to Genoa in a flying boat courtesy of Imperial Airways".

"My, you do get about, don't you" observed Mary flatly. "But I thought you said something about Vienna?"

"Oh, yes, well that came after. Anyway once I'd finished what I... what I had to do there, I thought I'd travel back to England and see Mama. But when I telephoned the house, Barrow explained that Mama had sailed for the States and that you were all travelling on the Continent. I have to fly back from Genoa in... well eventually, so here I am. I do hope you don't mind?"  
"Mind? Why should we mind? Presumably you've booked yourself a compartment because..."  
"Oh yes of course. I've..."

"Hello, Edith. You look well" said Matthew cutting in, and kissing her lightly on the cheek.

"Do I?" asked Edith absent-mindedly, looking over her shoulder. "I suppose it must be all that sun!" She glanced again in the direction of the salle d'attente situated just behind them in the Gare Maritime.

"Sybil, darling, how absolutely wonderful to see you. I must say I do like your hair!" Edith smiled warmly at Sybil.

"Tom never liked it when I had it cut short back in 1919. This is a practical compromise!" Sybil laughed, before embracing Edith warmly.

"Darling Tom!"

"Hello Edith! Dug up any more pharaohs?" laughed Tom, his blue eyes sparkling with mirth. He had always had a very soft spot for Edith ever since the explosion at the Shelbourne Hotel.

"Wrong country I'm afraid, darling. That's Egypt".

"I know" Tom grinned, before hugging her warmly to him, and as he did so, saw her glance yet again towards the door of the salle d'attente of the Gare Maritime, thought he saw a face at one of the windows, but if so, it was gone in an instant.

"Do you mind if we all go inside the waiting room and sit down for a moment?" she asked  
"Why should we want to go inside?" asked Mary. "The train will be departing shortly".

"Because... well because... there's someone I would rather like you all to meet" said Edith.

"Who?" Mary asked.

"Oh Mary, don't be so tiresome. Just humour me please?" asked Edith, chewing her lower lip.

"Humour ... Oh, very well".

"No!" Edith laid a restraining hand on Tom's arm. "Not the children; at least, not just yet".

"As you wish". Tom smiled gently at Edith. For someone who could travel across Sinai, take a train to Alexandria, and then fly to Genoa in a flying boat, he thought Edith seemed uncharacteristically nervous.

Then, with Sybil having made sure that, at least for the time being, that, ably, if unwillingly, assisted by Mary's maid Hodges, Nanny Bridges was comfortable with looking after both the Branson and Crawley children out on the platform, with Edith leading the way, Matthew, Mary, Tom and Sybil now followed her inside the salle d'attente of the Gare Maritime at Calais.

**Author's note:**

All the members of Tom's adoptive family figure prominently in my other story "Home Is Where The Heart Is".

2RN began broadcasting in 1926 and continued doing so until 1933.

The General Post Office in Dublin was the scene of fierce fighting during the Easter Rising of 1916 during which time the building was completely burnt out. It was only fully restored after the establishment of the Irish Free State.

Founded in 1745, The Rotunda is one of the three main maternity hospitals in Dublin.

The original St. Vincent's Hospital was founded in 1834. Run by the Sisters of Charity, it was open to patients of all denominations, provided they could afford to pay for their care.

Run by nuns and set up with good intentions to save women from the evils of prostitution, the Magdalene asylums (or laundries) were established throughout both Europe and North America. Later, they became notorious as grim places which institutionalised "fallen women" against their will. The first such asylum in Ireland opened in 1765 and the last in that country closed as recently as 1996.

The Chemins de Fer du Nord was a French railway company which served that part of France lying essentially to the north of Paris.

Petra is a world famous archaeological site, situated in what is now the Kingdom of Jordan. It remained unknown in the west until 1812. Aptly known as "[the] rose red city, half as old as time", since 1985 it has been classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Imperial Airways was a commercial airline which operated between 1924 and 1939. While serving parts of Europe, its principal routes linked together the far flung quarters of the British Empire.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Max

From his vantage point, kneeling on the bench inside the salle d'attente, unobserved, or so at least he thought, through the grimy window, he had been watching all of them for some time. He had witnessed their encounter on the platform just outside; judged from their facial expressions that it had not gone especially well, but more than that he could not tell; dared not venture.

His mouth felt unaccountably dry; fear did that, or so he'd heard tell. But then naked fear was not an emotion to which he was accustomed, so it had to be something else, to account for the present dryness in his mouth. Perhaps... No; best not to think about **that**. After all, it served no useful purpose, least of all to himself.

He'd recognised all four of them of course, not only from the handful of photographs he'd recently been shown, but also from the descriptions he'd been given of them so very long ago: the tall, fair haired one, who seemed so apologetic, so courteous, so diffident, despite all appearances to the contrary, must be the Graf. He corrected himself: the earl. The imperious, dark haired woman, the one with the pale, angry face, with eyes like hard, dark brown pebbles, she must be his wife, the Gräfin. Yes, every inch a Gräfin! Again, mentally, he corrected himself: the countess.

The other two, the man with the blond hair and laughing eyes, der Jornalist - the newspaper man, and the other woman, the one with the grey blue eyes and the shoulder length hair - so different from how she appeared in the photograph - must be his wife, die Krankenschwester - the nurse. She was pretty, looked to be kind hearted, but then, as he knew to his cost, appearances could so often be deceptive. Well, he was a Schönborn and he was more than a match for any of them! He saw the door knob begin to turn, hurriedly slipped off the bench, and stood up. Well, this was it, no going back now. He stiffened, stood stock still, motionless, expressionless, and waited.

Here, inside the airy, light, high ceilinged salle d'attente it was both cool and quiet. Behind them, just beyond the now closed door, outside on the platform, the continuing hustle and bustle connected with the waiting train seemed suddenly to fade away.

It was now, on entering the salle d'attente, all of them together saw him for that very first time; standing at the far end of the room, an undeniably handsome, sandy haired, blue eyed boy, dressed in a white shirt, brown lederhosen, greyish-green knee socks, and brown boots.

She smiled at him and then walking slowly forward, turned to face them and stood behind him, placing her hands lightly upon his shoulders. She leant forward, whispered his name. He half turned his head, and smiled. He could smell the heady fragrance of her favourite perfume - Shalimar. He knew its name from the stylish, fluted, clear glass bottle which he'd seen so many times before, which contained the highly scented, amber coloured liquid, and which stood on her dressing table in her bedroom at Rosenburg, near Vienna, in Lower Austria.

"This, is Max" she said simply.

**Author's Note:**

Graf and Gräfin are titles of German nobility, approximating in rank to those of earl and countess in England.

Created by Jacques Guerlain, and first launched in 1921, Shalimar is "a refined oriental feminine fragrance with iris, vanilla, and rose" - or so I'm told! Guerlain took the name for this perfume from the Garden of Shalimar created, by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, for whom, as her final resting place, he built the Taj Mahal. Shalimar is an Arabian word and given, in this take, Edith's love of the Near East, it seemed rather appropriate.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Versuchs Doch Mein Liebling!

"Versuchs doch mein Liebling!" she said crisply.

Mary shot an astonished glance at Sybil. Neither of them had known Edith spoke German but then, was that really that surprising? With first Sybil, and then Mary, both married, and with an increasing clutch of children between them, since the early 20s, with Sybil and Tom over in Ireland, and with Matthew and Mary taking an ever greater part in the running of the Downton Abbey estate, Edith had chosen, or so it seemed, much to the dismay of both her parents, to spend less and less time in England.

Although she had flown back to England from Cairo for Robert's funeral, at the time, Edith had seemed distracted, pre-occupied with something, although, at the time, Cora had said it was simply grief at losing her beloved father.

But then, last Christmas, while all the rest of them were out at a shoot, even Tom, who watched from the sidelines without participating, Edith had taken it upon herself to depart Downton without such much as a word, apparently all on the strength of an unexpected telephone call which she had received at the abbey.

When they returned to the house late in the day, to find Edith had gone, no-one knew quite what to think, and, understandably, Cora had been most dreadfully upset, even more so, when in the New Year of 1932, Edith had made excuse after excuse as to why she could not possibly get over to England for the foreseeable future, which was one of the reasons why Cora, with all the rest of the family embarking on their trip to Italy, had been so easily persuaded to sail for America on board the Majestic.

Edith now whispered something else, also in German, to the sandy haired, blue eyed young boy, who in turn nodded curtly, and, as he did so, glanced shyly backwards over his left shoulder, seemingly seeking some kind of reassurance from Edith for whatever it was that was about to happen. Edith smiled and nodded her head in encouragement.

"Versuchs doch!" she repeated softly.

So now, with his back to her, standing ramrod straight in front of the five of them, Max clicked his heels smartly together and bowed gravely to them all from the waist, first to Matthew, and then to Mary, murmuring _Graf _and then _Gräfin _to them in turn, before shaking Matthew firmly by the hand and then, taking Mary's proffered right hand in his own, giving her a perfect baisse-main without any trace of embarrassment whatsoever.

The young boy straightened up, and then inclined his head smartly first to Tom, to whom he referred equally politely as _Herr Branson_ before shaking him just as firmly by the hand as he had done Matthew, and then nodded to Sybil, whom he called _Frau Branson_, and to whom he also gave a baisse-main. These pleasantries now completed, smiling broadly, the boy took a couple of steps backwards, bowed once again, and then moved to stand next Edith who smiled at him, gently squeezed and patted his upper left arm in reassurance. It was obvious to them all, that the boy had been in some kind of minor accident, probably a fall, as, although they were much faded, bruises could be seen on both his right knee and also on his right elbow.

During the whole of this performance, there really was no other word to describe what had just taken place, several times, Sybil's eyes had darted slowly from Edith to the boy and then back again. At the same time, she felt Tom's fingers interlace with her own, gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, and knew intuitively that he was seeing what she was seeing, was thinking what she herself was thinking, It fell however, to Mary to ask the obvious question, although if any of them cared to look, the facial resemblance was so striking that no explanation as to the young boy's identity was really necessary. But ask for it, Mary now did.

"And just **who**,exactly, is Max?" asked Mary coolly, looking fixedly first at the boy and then back at her younger sister. With realisation suddenly dawning upon her, Mary gasped, believing that, like Sybil, she knew what Edith's answer would be.

"Max is my son" said Edith softly, instinctively slipping her arm protectively around the young boy's shoulders, standing her ground defiantly, her eyes flicking back and forth from Mary to Sybil daring them to judge her, trying to gauge their reaction to her startling news. After all, she thought defiantly, one had had a fling with a Turkish diplomat before she was married, and the other had run off with the family chauffeur. Who were they, either of them, if they so chose, to now stand in judgement on her?

"And his father?"

The peremptory tone of Mary's question, let alone the impertinence of it, along with the lightning speed with which it was posed cut into Edith's reverie, caused Sybil to audibly gasp in amazement. However for her part, and full credit to her thought Sybil, Edith kept her composure, and replied levelly to her elder sister without any trace of embarrassment.

"Max's father is Friedrich von Schönborn, an Austrian archaeologist with the Archaeological Institute in Vienna. We met in 1922, in Cairo. And we've worked together on excavations several times, both in Egypt and the Near East".

"Obviously" said Mary wryly, her raised eyebrows silently suggesting just what **work** she thought Edith and her Austrian lover had been engaged upon. "So the boy is ten then?" she asked dispassionately.

The inference was equally clear; that Edith had leapt into bed with her Austrian lover at the first opportunity that had presented itself. Sybil saw Matthew wince at the directness both of his wife's line of questioning and the obvious insinuation.

"Actually Mary, "the boy" as you choose to call him, is nine years old. And your nephew has a name. He's called Max, in case you've forgotten. And also, before I answer any more of your questions, impertinent or otherwise, I have the beginnings of an awful headache. Do you mind if we all sit down?" asked Edith.

"No, not at all" said Mary. Her eyes narrowed. She did not take kindly to being reprimanded, especially not in public.

They all took seats on the benches in the lofty ceilinged waiting room, young Max sitting next to his mother, their hands clasped together on the boy's knee, and waited patiently for Edith to continue with her explanation.

"Perhaps Max should wait outside, with his cousins while..." began Matthew. He smiled gently at Edith.

"Thank you Matthew, that's very kind of you, but that won't be necessary". Edith shot her English brother-in-law a radiant smile.

"And?" asked Mary, inclining her head and raising an inquisitive exquisitely manicured eyebrow.

"I know what you're thinking Mary" said Edith.

"And what, pray, is that?"  
"That Friedrich is married..."

"Well, you certainly aren't!" snapped Mary looking pointedly at the bare ring finger of her sister's left hand.

"No, I'm not, and neither, Mary, as it happens, is Friedrich. He's a widower. Like Lavinia, his wife died in the 'flu epidemic at the end of the war. They'd been married scarcely a year".

"How convenient for you" observed Mary dryly.

Edith flushed red, but ignoring Mary's stinging observation, she chose instead to direct her next remark to her Irish brother-in-law.

"I think you will understand this Tom, better than anyone else here".

Tom looked up, and then slowly nodded his acquiescence.

"I think I do. This chap's family? Am I right in thinking, Edith, that, they're Catholic?" he asked, more by way of a statement than a question.

"How ever did you know that?" asked Sybil.

"Like Ireland, darlin', Austria is predominantly a Catholic country. It stands to reason I think".

Edith nodded.

"Yes, you're right, Tom. And not only that, but the Schönborns are one of the oldest aristocratic families in Austria. I'm sorry to have to say this Matthew, but compared to Friedrich's family, the earls of Grantham are parvenus".

Tom chuckled and Matthew smiled, both of them wondering independently of each other just how their decidedly aristocratic late father-in-law would have reacted to being called a parvenu.

"Oh, don't mind me, Edith. I'm only middle class anyway!" laughed Matthew.

"And o'im only a t'ick Oirish Mick!" chuckled Tom lapsing into the broadest Irish brogue he could muster.

At this point in the proceedings, the countess of Grantham shot her husband and brother-in-law a haughty, withering look. Much as she loved them both, in Mary's considered opinion, disparaging the noble lineage of the Crawleys was not to be borne, and that, she thought grimly, was something that, as head of the family, Matthew especially should have realised. After all, it was their eldest son's birthright they were talking about, and neither was it a time for levity - of any kind. Thank goodness that granny and Papa had not lived to see this day. And, God knew what Mama would have to say when she got to hear about it!

"It's ironic isn't it?" observed Edith.  
"What is?" asked Mary coldly. She was not in the mood for her younger sister's non sequiturs either.

"All those years ago, dearest Papa making such a fuss about Sybil marrying darling Tom, at least in part because he was Catholic".

"That wasn't the real reason, as well you know!" said Mary acidly.

"Mary please!" exclaimed Sybil.

"It's all right, darlin'. We all know what the feckin reason was. I was the bloody chauffeur and dear old Robert, God rest his soul, didn't think I was good enough to marry darling Sybil! In fact, at the time, none of you did!" Tom chuckled.

Sybil grimaced, gave Tom a wry look, realising that even now, after all this time, after all that they had both achieved together, not least being the parents of three happy, healthy, intelligent children, and with Tom now the deputy editor of Ireland's largest selling newspaper, the initial reaction of her family all those years ago to their engagement and subsequent marriage still rankled with her husband. There were, it seemed, some things that the passage of time could never heal.

"And so now, here I find myself almost in the very same position as darling Tom, but in my case for **not** being Catholic and **not** being nearly noble enough for Friedrich to be permitted to marry me, even though he wants to, has suggested we go through a civil ceremony instead. Not that it would be recognised by either his family or the Catholic Church" concluded Edith lamely, resting her hands together in her lap. She looked down at the floor, seemingly lost in thought.

"So why tell us this now, why not before?" asked Mary. "Was it to spare Granny's and Papa's feelings?"

"Perhaps. At least in part, but no, not really" said Edith softly.

"Then **what really**?" persisted Mary.

"Because of what's now happening in Austria. If anything... should happen... to Friedrich or to me".

"And what do you mean by that? What's happening in Austria?" Mary glanced up at Matthew, pleading silently at him with her eyes for some form of enlightenment. After all, he was always so well informed when it came to such matters.

Matthew nodded at Mary, saw her relax somewhat.

"I take it... that Max's father isn't too enamoured of the present political situation in Austria then?" asked Matthew coolly. Tom was impressed; gave Matthew full marks for his knowledge of the worsening political situation here in Europe.

Edith raised her head and looked squarely at Matthew.

"No, he isn't and there are many others in Austria just like him. Like both of us in fact. Friedrich is certain that now President Miklas has appointed him Chancellor, Dolfuss is aiming at a dictatorship. Much as Friedrich hates the National Socialists who want closer ties with Germany and their leader Hitler, Friedrich loathes Dolfuss even more! He's been very vocal in his opposition of what's happened to democracy in Austria already and what may still happen in the immediate future".

Matthew nodded.

"Yes, I don't suppose Dolfuss and his thugs take kindly to criticism, do they?" he asked softly.

Edith shook her head sadly.

"No, they don't. Friedrich has received several pointed "warnings" to desist. But that won't silence him. He's very much like you in that regard, darling Tom".

Her brother-in-law smiled, nodded his head. For all the nonsense about his noble ancestry, Tom was beginning to like the sound of Friedrich von Schönborn.

"And there's something else, which I haven't yet told you".

"Indeed?" Mary's ever expressive eyebrows rose several inches upwards.

Ignoring her sister's sarcasm, Edith turned instead to both Tom and Matthew.

"If you two don't mind, it's something which I would prefer to share first with Mary and Sybil".

"No, of course not" said Tom standing up. Winking at Max, gently Tom took Edith's hands in his own and looked thoughtfully down at her. "Just remember though what your grandmother once told me, in fact, it was on the night before Mary and Matthew were married".

"What was that?" asked Edith searching his dearly loved face.

"That we're all family, and whether it be the Bransons or the Crawleys, we stick together!"

"God bless you, darling Tom!" whispered Edith, as her brother-in-law now bent forward and placed a very tender kiss upon her cheek.

"I suggest" said Matthew breezily, now likewise standing up, "that this might be an opportune moment to take Danny and Robert down to see that engine. Otherwise, we'll never hear the end of it if we don't. Perhaps young Max might like to come too?" 

"Thank you Matthew, but I think he'd better stay here with me, at least for the time being" said Edith.

"Whatever you wish. We'll see you all later then. We'll be back before the train leaves".  
"Of course you will" said Mary. She smiled a thin smile. "If not, it's rather a long walk for you all to Florence!"

**Author's note:**

Engelbert Dolfuss (1892-1934) was Chancellor of Austria 1932-34. In an attempt to stop German Nazi influence in Austria, he shut down the Austrian parliament, banned the Austrian Nazi party, later suppressed the Socialist movement, and then all other political parties too, except for his own - the Christian Social Party. He was assassinated by German Nazi agents.

Wilhelm Miklas (1872-1956) was an Austrian politician, who served as President of Austria from 1928 until the German Anschluss (annexation) of the country in 1938.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Mickey

Amidst all the many, varied comings and goings on the crowded platform of the Gare Maritime at Calais, sitting cross-legged on top of an empty luggage trolley, along with his cousin Danny, while his parents, his uncle and aunt, were all inside the waiting room talking to Aunt Edith, young Robert Crawley had just offered Saiorse one of his last gobstoppers. That had been just after Danny himself had suggested to his sister that she might like to come with them and see the engine, when, at last, both their fathers finally chose to re-emerge from the station waiting room.

Saiorse's reply had been all too predictable.

"Why should I want to come with you two and see some silly old engine?" she asked, assuming, what she hoped, amounted to the appearance of supercilious indifference.

"Come on sis. It'll be fun. Da will be coming with us" coaxed Danny.

That particular piece of information gave Saiorse at least a moment's pause for thought. If her beloved Da really was going to be there too, then that might make such an expedition just about bearable, even with these two idiots in tow.

"Would you like one of my gobstoppers, Saiorse? You can choose..." began Robert, but before he could say anything else, Saiorse cut him off. She hadn't forgotten hearing him snigger when, in public, Ma had told her to apologise to her Aunt Mary on the staircase back on board the steamer. Saiorse had been utterly mortified. And she intended to get even with Robert for that snigger too, and with the sound of it still ringing in her ears, she now glared at him as if he had offered her a dose of arsenic.

"No thank you, Robert! I'd sooner starve!"

At her curt refusal, Robert looked crestfallen, which pleased Saiorse no end.

Standing on the platform in front of the two boys, she gazed disdainfully down, first at her cousin, and then at her elder brother. They really were the absolute limit! Both of them! Not that Saiorse was especially annoyed with Robert, at least no more than was usual, apart from that snigger of course. No, what it was which had really made Saiorse so cross, apart from having to apologise to her Aunt Mary, was that she had so much wanted to talk to her other aunt: her Aunt Edith.

For, unlike both Ma and Aunt Mary, Aunt Edith went to all kinds of such interesting places, met all kinds of such interesting people, did all sorts of such interesting things, brought back Saiorse such interesting presents too, from strange, faraway places, that she always made sound so fascinating and mysterious – well certainly more fascinating and mysterious than Blackrock, but, thought Saiorse, that wouldn't be difficult. Blackrock was duller than Dermot Delany, and he was the most stupid boy in her class.

In the past, Aunt Edith had always made time for Saiorse at least that was until today. But now, and completely unexpectedly, things seemed to have suddenly changed. For, instead of staying outside and talking to her, for some strange reason, Aunt Edith and all the other grown-ups had gone inside the waiting room, were all inside there now. None of the children had been allowed to go in with them, which was why Saiorse had been forced to stay outside on the platform with these two idiots.

She scowled angrily again at Danny and Robert.

Honestly, boys!

Feeling that she had at last got the better of them, at least of Robert, now satisfied, Saiorse walked to stand but a few feet off, where she deliberately turned her back on both Danny and her cousin and stood facing the other way, only to be confronted, unexpectedly, by a decidedly uninteresting stretch of blank wall.

Somewhat further along the platform, standing some distance away, and pre-occupied as they both were, looking after Simon, Bobby, and Rebecca, Nanny Bridges, and Mary's maid Hodges, had, perhaps fortunately, singularly failed to overhear the exchange of pleasantries which had passed between Saiorse, her brother, and her cousin, the more so, because it transpired there was now something of a problem: Master Bobby desperately needed the toilet. Neither Nanny Bridges, nor Hodges spoke any French, and, while young Master Bobby, now screwing up his face, continued to squirm beside them on the platform, they both tried to decide how best to deal with this seemingly intractable difficulty. Then, thankfully the door to the waiting room opened and the earl of Grantham, followed by his brother-in-law Mr. Branson, both came out.

Seeing her adored Da, along with her Uncle Matthew, at long last now re-emerging from the waiting room, Saiorse, who had finally got bored of looking at the same uninteresting stretch of wall and turned round, now smiled broadly, and made to walk towards her father. But, as she did so, her brother Danny and her cousin Robert both claimed Tom's undivided attention. Saiorse paused, hung back. She really didn't like sharing her beloved Da with anyone, not even with her brother Danny, and certainly not with that unspeakable boy Robert.

"Da! Da! Can we go and see the engine now?" asked Danny scrambling up from off the luggage trolley.

"May we father? May we please?" Robert asked, doing likewise.

Matthew and Tom both smiled at their sons' eager faces, both lit in boyish epiphany.

"In a moment, boys", laughed Tom, ruffling his son's hair. "What time does the train leave, Matthew?"

"In about half an hour or so, I think. Perhaps a little longer". Matthew glanced at his wristwatch.

"Yes, I think we've time to...

"Oh, excuse me Your Lordship. Mr. Branson, sir. Am I that glad to see the both of you. Master..." began Nanny Bridges, but Bobby's shouted words cut off the necessity of the poor woman having to explain things any further.

"**Da!** **I need a feckin wee!**" piped young Bobby at the top of his treble voice. He was now jigging up and down almost uncontrollably and the little boy's shouted explanation of his present predicament carried the length and breadth of the entire platform.

Fortunately, the Irish expletive went unrecognised by everyone for what it was, apart from Tom of course, even by young Bobby, who, for the very first time that morning, had heard his father use the same word, in the bathroom at their hotel when Tom had nicked himself shaving. Liking both the sound of the word and the way his father had said it, young Bobby Branson had mentally stored it away for future use, and, in his boyish innocence, now chose this particular moment to do just that.

But, even if the Irish expletive passed all of them by, given the fact that most of those passengers now boarding the train, or waiting to do so, were English, heads turned from all directions to see just who it was who was now announcing to one and all what it was he so urgently needed to do.

"Master Bobby! That's not how to..."

"It's alright Nanny, I'll deal with it" said Tom looking round for the whereabouts of a public toilet. Grinning broadly, Matthew nodded, and pointed Tom in the direction of a sign at the far end of the platform.

"Over there old chap. I'll stay here with the boys. Bon voyage!" Matthew quipped.

Having picked Bobby up in his arms, dodging and weaving through a seemingly never ending flood of passengers, avoiding porters and luggage trolleys, in a manner of which Noel Murphy would have been proud, Tom fairly raced down the long platform in the direction indicated by Matthew.

On reaching the men's public toilet, even if he had not understood the sign above the door, the smell emanating from inside, would have indicated to anyone passing by outside, as to just what use the place beyond the open doorway was put. Tom deposited Bobby back on the ground, and taking him gently by the hand, led him inside.

While Tom undid the front of the little boy's shorts, then helped him pull out his penis, Bobby wrinkled his nose.

"Pooh! Da! It stinks in here!"

"I know son, I know" said Tom. "There now, point Mickey at the china, do your business, wash our hands, and then we'll be all done".

While waiting for Bobby to do what he needed so desperately to do, Tom glanced nonchalantly around at the peeling walls of the public convenience. As he did so, through the slatted vent high in the wall, immediately above his head, he heard the sound of foreign, guttural voices, drifting in from somewhere outside. He recognised at once the language being spoken: German, and then in a rush of words which he didn't understand at all, heard clearly the one word which he did: "Crawley".

**Author's note:**

Noel Murphy (1904-1987) was an Irish rugby player. Between 1930 and 1933, he won eleven caps, playing as a flanker.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Secrets And Lies

"So, would you like to tell me, just what could possibly be worse than my own sister having a child born out of wedlock?" demanded Mary imperiously. She had stood up, and even now, was walking backwards and forwards the full length of the salle d'attente, trying to regain control of her emotions, could not believe what she had just heard.

Edith bit back a stinging retort.

There were, she thought, very many things far worse than "the present deplorable situation" as Mary had just described it - after, of course, darling Tom and Matthew had both left the salle d'attente in search of their eldest sons, in order to walk with them down to inspect the engine of the waiting train.

In the circumstances, and in an attempt to try and pour oil on troubled waters, perhaps wisely, Edith now forbore to make the obvious observation that one of those very such things was, after enjoying a night of sexual abandon, the next morning having a decidedly dead Turkish diplomat found in one's own bed.

"Your other sister marrying the family chauffeur?" Sybil quipped, in an attempt, a mistaken one, or so it seemed, to lighten the present difficult situation.

However, Sybil's attempt at levity backfired spectacularly, in fact deflated faster than the R101 had done over Beauvais, for Mary shot her a venomous look, and then returned immediately to the fray.

"Dear God! Edith, you do realise, don't you, that the newspapers back home will have a field day if ever any of this ever gets out! Couldn't you have thought of the family? Couldn't you think of Mama? Or, can't you think of anyone else? Other than yourself that is!" Mary pressed her fingers to her temples. By now she was starting to develop a headache to match that of Edith herself.

"Oh Mary! Will you please stop pacing the room and sit down! If only you knew! I do **that** all the time". Edith sighed heavily.

"Really? Knew what? Pray, do enlighten me!" Mary's ever expressive eyebrows twitched. Surprisingly, she did as she had been asked and sat down heavily on the bench alongside Sybil.

"Don't sound so quite so intrigued, Mary. I can assure you this is something you won't want to hear about! Either of you!" Edith snapped, shaking her head from side to side.

At her elder sister's' words, Sybil's head reared. Before her very eyes, the prosaic, utilitarian surroundings of the salle d'attente of the Gare Maritime in Calais vanished, the intervening years rolled back as if they had never been, and in her mind she found herself seated once again, on a bed, in a lamp lit bedroom, at the top of Ma's homely little house in Clontarf.

"Don't look so expectant my love", Tom had said. "This be one secret you'd rather I didn't share with you!" It was then, that for the very first time, he had told her of the Bransons of County Cork, of Skerries House, and of Maeve.

"So, are you going to tell us? Or, do you intend continuing playing cat and mouse instead?" demanded Mary, whose temper was rapidly approaching "Hurricane Force" on the Beaufort Scale

Sybil said nothing; instead searched Edith's face for any hint of what it was she seemed so desperate, and yet so reluctant, to impart, but found no hint whatsoever of what was to come.

"So then, very well. I expect both of you remember last Christmas, when I left Downton... rather earlier than was anticipated?" 

"Earlier than anticipated?" echoed Mary. "That's putting it mildly! Yes, of course I remember. I'm sure Sybil here does too. In fact, I expect **all **of us remember that. What of it?" Mary eyed Edith contemptuously. "You left, as I recall it, without even saying goodbye, while we were all out, at the shoot. Mama was dreadfully upset about it... when we came back to find you'd packed and gone. We learned about your "midnight flit" first from the children".

Edith said nothing.

"From the children!" repeated Mary, as if learning of Edith's unexpected departure from Downton first from the children was a social disaster on a magnitude which somehow equated to the financial crash of 1929 or else the loss of the R101 over here in France.

Edith still said nothing.

"When I asked Barrow, he said you'd had a telephone call. Long distance apparently, or so he said. Other than that the caller spoke with a German accent, he could tell us nothing more. I believe Barrow is rather familiar with the German accent... from his annual trips to the fleshpots of Berlin". Mary grimaced.

"Yes, it was long distance" confirmed Edith seemingly now regaining the use of her voice.

"From Vienna, no doubt?"

"Yes, from Vienna".

"So your Austrian lover snapped his fingers and you went running. Was that it?"

"Mary! Don't be so insensitive!" Sybil sounded appalled".

Edith reached forward, clasped Sybil warmly by her hand.

"Thank you" she mouthed silently.

Edith turned back to Mary.

"The call was from Friedrich, yes. But not for the reason you think!"

"Oh, really?"  
"I may be many things, but I'm not a fool. So don't treat me as if I am one".  
"Not a fool?" This time it was Edith's turn to echo her sister's words. "Oh Mary, really. If only you knew!"

"Knew what?"  
"Why I left Downton so hurriedly".

"We've already established that" said Mary dismissively.

"No, we haven't" said Sybil calmly, sensing, and with rising apprehension, that there was something chilling here. Something, which as yet, Edith hadn't told them; was finding difficult, if not impossible to discuss.

"Very well then, if it wasn't Fritz or whatever his name is, who summoned you back to Vienna, why did you leave?"

"His name is Friedrich. And, no, Mary, he didn't summon me. Our relationship isn't like that. Nor, I'm sure does darling Tom ever **summon** Sybil". Edith glanced across at her younger sister, as if seeking confirmation of what she already knew to be the case.

"Summon me? Tom? He wouldn't dare!" laughed Sybil. "In fact, he wouldn't know how!"

Edith smiled broadly, turned back to Mary.

"There now! So, does Matthew ever **summon** you?" asked Edith loftily. 

Mary's nostrils flared.

"No, of course not!" she snapped.

"Then why would you expect my relationship with Friedrich to be any different to that between you and Matthew?" asked Edith softly.

Mary realised when she was beaten.

"I don't" she said lamely. "So then, why did you, leave so suddenly?"

"Oh Mary! You know, at times, you can be so incredibly stupid!" Edith's eyes glistened with tears. Well then, let them come she thought bitterly. 

"Do stop saying "Oh Mary" in that anguished tone! While I may be many things, Edith, stupid isn't one of them. If Frit... Friedrich didn't call you back to Vienna, why was it that you left Downton so suddenly last Christmas, without even saying good bye?"

During the increasingly heated exchange of words between his mother and her elder sister, young Max had so far said nothing, but it was now that he suddenly chose this moment to draw attention to himself. He tugged gently at his mother's arm, and as she turned to ask him what the matter was, Sybil saw the look Edith gave the young boy. It was a look of pure, unconditional love, saw the tears in Edith's eyes, and in that very instant she knew why it was that Edith had left Downton at Christmas without saying goodbye.

"Was ist, mein Liebling?"

Max then asked something of his mother in German, of which the only word Mary caught was "Gräfin", obviously a reference to her.

Edith shook her head.

"Nein", she said gently, ruffling his sandy hair. "Noch nicht. In ein paar Minuten".

Whatever it was that Max had asked his mother's reply seemed to satisfy him. Edith glanced at Mary and Sybil, realised some form of explanation was called for.

"He was asking me if I was all right, why I was so upset, when the train was leaving".

"And what did he have to say about me?" asked Mary coldly.

"He asked..." Here Edith faltered, glanced at her son, and was instantly warmed by the sight of Max's smile. That seemed to give Edith the strength to answer Mary's question.

"He asked me why... why you were so angry... so nasty" Edith said.

Edith's voice contained no trace of bitterness or rancour, only deep resignation and a weary sadness, borne of a lifetime of regret, of always playing second fiddle: firstly to a beautiful, imperious elder sister, and then, as well, to a younger sister, who had always been braver than she, prepared to fight for what she wanted, to defy her family and flout social convention, to achieve her heart's desire. First Sybil and then Mary had both married the men they loved; each had three children. As countess of Grantham, Mary also had wealth and an unrivalled social position, while over there in Dublin, working as a nurse, Sybil had achieved her dream of simply being just ordinary.

And, reflected Edith, she too, now had what she had always wanted: a life filled with purpose, now made complete with the knowledge that there was someone who loved her as much as she loved him. For Friedrich loved her desperately, had asked her to marry him, and in their love for one another, together, they had made this handsome little boy. Impulsively, Edith hugged her son to her in a fierce embrace.

Like Sybil and Mary, to all intents and purposes, Edith had achieved her very own heart's desire, but with one singular difference: in her case, it had all come at an appalling cost. For in the very minute of its realisation, her own dream had been shattered beyond repair. But did that now give her the right to destroy her own sisters' happiness, for that was what she would most surely do, if she now told them the whole, awful truth.

**Author's Note:**

The R101 was a British airship. In October 1930, while en route to Karachi, (then part of British India) it crashed during a storm, coming down near Beauvais in Picardy, in northern France. The disaster killed nearly all those on board. While over eighty years later the reasons for the crash remain a matter of dispute, the loss of the R101effectively put an end to British airship development.

The Bransons of County Cork, Skerries House, and Maeve, all appear in my other story, "Home Is Where The Heart Is".


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

La Toilette À La Turque

With young Bobby at last now having finished doing what he had been so desperate to do earlier, with their hands washed, moments later, taking Bobby's hand in his own, with his young son firmly in tow, Tom made to leave the foetid, stinking public toilet as quickly as possible. However, as it was, in the event, things did not proceed quite as he had intended.

It was as they passed by the two darkened cubicles, Bobby's eager little blue eyes, ever alert to the possibility of new experiences, noticed that one of the doors stood open. And, it was because of this one simple fact, that being possessed of both an inquisitive nature and an enquiring mind, Bobby now observed something else too; something which would lead to a startling revelation on the part of his father, and was something which he would remember for the rest of his life.

For, glancing into the semi-darkness of the cubicle, much to Bobby's surprise he saw that something which should have been there, most undoubtedly was not. At the sudden dawning of this realisation, the cornflower blue eyes of young Bobby Branson grew round as saucers. The little boy stopped abruptly in his tracks, stood stock still, and tugged hard on Tom's hand to gain his father's full attention.

"Da!"

"What is it son?"

"Da, look!"

"Look at what?" asked Tom and through gritted teeth. The stench of stale urine, and worse, was nauseating, almost overwhelming, and made him want to retch. Accordingly, Tom was doing his very best to keep his mouth firmly closed, to breathe as little as possible, and wondering what on earth it was that could possibly so have engaged his young son's attention in this decidedly dirty, smelly French public convenience.

"**Da! Someone's nicked the feckin loo**!" Bobby announced loudly and in the most appalled of tones.

Momentarily, Tom's gaze shifted, slid furtively in the direction to where Bobby was now pointing, and seeing what it was that here, and in the most unlikeliest of places, had attracted his young son's attention, a burgeoning grin now twitched at the corners of Tom's mouth, and he surprised himself by suddenly thinking of Mary, his aristocratic sister-in-law, who had such very decided notions as to what she thought to be proper and right.

Of course, both Mary and Tom had come a very long way since the old days, when she considered him to be nothing more than the impertinent, upstart Irish chauffeur who had so dared to presume first to court, and then wed, her youngest sister Sybil.

Now, well over ten years later, while from time to time they would both peck and snipe at each other, they had the utmost respect the one for the other, in fact loved each other dearly, but on seeing the French hole-in-the-ground toilet, Tom all but chuckled. And to think, thought he, that Mary had once considered the Irish primitive!

"Hm! I'll tell you all about it when we're outside", said Tom to Bobby, who, somewhat surprisingly, was exhibiting a marked reluctance to leave and who, it seemed, would much rather have preferred to stay put and investigate the matter of the missing toilet still further. Tom decidedly saw no such need himself and now taking his young son firmly by the hand, all but dragged a reluctant young Bobby out of the public convenience, onto the platform, and into the bracing, clean sea air of the quayside.

At long last, now daring to inhale deeply, oblivious to all the other passengers, Tom Branson squatted down on the crowded platform of the Gare Maritime, placed his hands gently on the little boy's shoulders, and gazed directly into his younger son's adorable little face. Anyone ever seeing the two of them together, as now, would never fail to realise that Bobby was Tom's son; with his blue eyes, his blond hair, and with an infectious, cheeky, lop-sided grin, the little boy was an identical version of his father in miniature.

"Now, son, about in there…" began Tom.

"Should we tell the polees?" whispered Bobby in all seriousness.

"About what?" Tom asked.

Bobby nodded his little head firmly in the direction of the public convenience. He knew that stealing was a **bad** thing to do, that people went to prison for taking things that didn't belong to them, and that in all likelihood they wouldn't get to go to Heaven either.

"That someone's nicked the feckin loo!" said Bobby earnestly.

Tom smiled broadly, and then slowly shook his head.

"No son, that won't be necessary. You see, that's what some public toilets are like here in France".

"**Oh**!" replied young Bobby with great solemnity, his impossibly blue eyes now widening in the realisation that he alone, or so he thought, was now privy to a most amazing secret, and one which remained unknown, even to Danny, his adored elder brother.

"And one thing more, about that word you just…" began Tom but then got no further in what he was about to say, for, at that very moment, a man dressed in a grey trilby and dark suit, rounding the corner swiftly from behind the public toilet, in the press of all the other people on the platform, failed until the very last minute to see Tom squatting there on the platform, and all but fell over him, nearly sprawling headlong, and in the process, losing his hat. He was now joined by his similarly clad compatriot, smoking a Camel cigarette. Tom instantly recognised the smell of the Turkish tobacco: Emmet Keogh, who worked in the newsroom at the Indy's offices on Talbot Street back home chain smoked the very same brand.

"Feckin hell! Watch where yous going!" yelled Tom in alarm, instantly pulling Bobby towards him, and with his own body, shielding the little boy from the likelihood of any harm.

Reeking of cheap cologne, the man who had nearly fallen over both Tom and his son recovered himself, was quickly helped to his feet by his friend, reached for his fallen hat, dusted it off, and rammed it firmly back on his head.

"Ficken Engländer!" snarled the man, his hare lip making that snarl seem all the more repulsive. Tom felt Bobby shrink against him, tightened his arms protectively around the little boy. While Tom spoke no German, the mouthed obscenity needed no explanation, merely a minor correction.

"Feckin **Irishman** actually!" grinned Tom.

The two men glared sourly at Tom, then strode hurriedly away from him away down the platform, and disappeared just as swiftly among the throng of passengers waiting to board the train. Of course, Tom couldn't be certain whether or not the two men were indeed the same ones whom he had overheard talking through the slatted vent at the rear of the public toilet. However, it seemed more than likely that they were, although to be truthful, by now Tom was beginning to doubt if he had even heard the word "Crawley".

After all, he didn't speak German and he could just as easily have been mistaken about what he thought he had overheard. But some innate sixth sense told Tom he wasn't, and that being so, he made a mental note to tell Matthew all about his chance encounter, and at the earliest opportunity too.

"Are you all right son?" Tom now asked, squatting down again.

Silently, Bobby nodded his little head, gazed squarely into his father's eyes, then flung his arms around Tom's neck, and kissed him.

"I love you Da!"

"I love you too Bobby!"

Tom kissed the little boy soundly back, playfully tickled his sides, and made him squirm and giggle with laughter. Both he and Sybil had taught all their children never to be afraid or ashamed of showing love or physical affection. Then, for a long moment, Bobby looked thoughtfully at his father as if weighing something up in his young mind.

"Da?"

"Yes son?"

"What's feckin mean?"

Tom sighed.

"I was just coming to that…"

**Author's Note:**

The title of this chapter is the French phrase for the type of convenience which so piques young Bobby's interest - literally "Turkish toilet", although they can be found elsewhere in the world too!


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

A Mother's Intuition

For most people, the waiting room of a railway station would not be the most likely of settings to choose as the place in which to divulge startling revelations of a highly personal nature, such as those which Lady Edith Crawley had just made known, both to her sisters and to her two brothers-in-law. And, had it not been for the fact that those other passengers now waiting patiently to board the Rome Express had chosen to stay outside on the platform, and so take advantage of the warm July sunshine, it is unlikely that Edith would have just told all of her immediate family here present what she had but a short time ago seen fit to impart to them.

With its faded travel posters, albeit in French, and apparently extolling the delights of places as diverse as Boulogne, Cayeux-sur-Mer, and le Touquet, along with its drab, dark painted wooden benches, the quayside salle d'attente here at Calais was much like any other comparable railway waiting room, even those back across the Channel in England.

Nevertheless, the salle d'attente of the Gare Maritime was also both light and airy and it was because of this, and with a distinct sense of shock, that Sybil now saw for the first time that whichever of them it had been and, on reflection, she thought it was Matthew, who had remarked upon meeting Edith on the quayside, as to how well she was looking, had merely been doing what was expected; making the usual, customary greeting, exchanging the normal pleasantries, observing the common courtesies, when meeting with a friend or relative whom one has not seen for some considerable time and seeing only skin deep and not seeing what lay beneath the surface, or, in fairness to darling Matthew, in this case, only seeing what Edith had allowed him to see, what she had wanted them all to see.

Last Christmas, as things turned out, Sybil had very little opportunity to spend much time with her elder sister, for, on Boxing Day, young Bobby had started running a high temperature, and thereafter had proceeded to go down with a heavy cold for much of what remained of the festive period. Sybil had spent a great deal of time upstairs with Bobby, causing even Tom, who was always just as concerned as she about the health and well being of their three children, to remark that she fussed too much; went on to say that neither he, nor anyone else for that matter, seemed to have seen much of Sybil in the last few days, adding that all Bobby had, was a bad cold, unpleasant enough for the little chap to be sure, but no more than that.

As Tom had always been, with their two eldest children when they too were ill, and to whom he was equally devoted, while Tom was more than happy to take it in turns with Sybil, in sitting with the little boy, loving him, trying to keep his spirits up by reading to him, and even helping him do a jigsaw if Bobby felt well enough to attempt it, aspirin, bed rest, keeping warm, and drinking plenty of hot lemon drinks was all that the young lad really needed, or so said Tom, causing Sybil to ask of him pithily, as she had done once before, just where precisely it was that Tom had studied medicine.

At that, and in the interests of keeping the peace, let alone little Bobby's welfare, which of course was what mattered most of all to them both, without further ado, Tom had quietly taken himself off to the desk Cora had so thoughtfully seen had been provided for him in one of the spare bedrooms. Once there, Tom had busied himself redrafting a piece he had been drafting on the ramifications of the Statute of Westminster and the likely effect its passing into law would have on the Irish Free State.

To be truthful though, but a short while after Tom had left their bedroom and when she herself had calmed down, part of Sybil realised that Tom spoke only the truth, but then, Sybil's third pregnancy had been particularly stressful, and Bobby, who, even when but a few days old, had looked so like darling Tom, and to whom, not that she had ever had, or would admit to having, a favourite, Sybil was nevertheless utterly devoted, had always seemed to succumb far more readily to childhood ailments than ever had either Danny or Saiorse.

Then, of course, there had come Edith's abrupt and wholly unanticipated moonlit flit from Downton. With Bobby at last recovering, and, given what Tom had said to her earlier, more to keep him company than for any other reason, Sybil had felt able to join the others for the shoot, not that either she or Tom took any interest in the proceedings whatsoever, but as a result of which, Sybil, like the rest of the family, had been away from the house when Edith had disappeared so suddenly and unexpectedly from Downton,

But now, sitting on the bench next to both Edith and young Max, here in the waiting room of the Gare Maritime, with the warm, strong sunlight of high summer streaming in through the large windows, Sybil realised that Matthew had been wrong. Of course, none of them were getting any younger; in fact, quite the reverse, but there were, thought Sybil, dark circles under Edith's eyes which had not been there before, and even the odd grey hairs at her temples. And, under the cursory veneer of glowing health, she now saw that Edith's skin was like parchment, stretched taut and thin over her cheekbones, a fact which was made so much more obvious by the colour now flooding across her face as she responded both angrily and defensively, to Mary's unsurprising annoyance at young Max's perceptive, if unwise, and implied criticism of his elder aunt, and which Mary saw as impertinence on the part of her young nephew.

There was, thought Sybil, as indeed Edith herself had intimated to them earlier, something else, that so far her elder sister had not yet seen fit to divulge, either to her or to Mary, and was, felt Sybil, the real key as to why it was Edith had been standing here on the quayside at Calais to greet them all as the Canterbury had hove into view and then docked at the steamer pier reserved for those intending to board the Rome Express; something which, Edith was, as Sybil had already surmised, extremely reluctant to impart, and which, had nothing at all to do with either the fact that she had given birth to an illegitimate child by her lover, or the rapidly unravelling political situation in post war Austria.

However, Mary's reaction to Edith's startling news, while predictable, would not, thought Sybil, help progress the matter in hand any further, in fact was extremely unlikely to do anything other than to result in a blazing row between her two older sisters, which would be of benefit to no-one, least of all Edith herself. But how best to try and pour oil on troubled waters? Mary had never been one to accept criticism, from any quarter, and certainly not from a young child; the fact that what young Max had said was undoubtedly true, only served to make matters worse, and, understandably, Edith would not take lightly Mary taking her young son to task for his forwardness.

"Why the impertinent little dev..." had begun Mary vehemently, but, to her credit, had stopped in mid sentence as she saw young Max clearly flinch, saw the little sandy haired boy instantly recoil, saw the naked fear upon his face, and then saw him snuggle protectively in against his mother's side. Edith, her eyes glittering, hugged Max tightly to her, guarding him with all the ferocity of a lioness protecting her infant cub from harm.

"Don't you dare Mary..." began Edith.

It was now that Sybil chose to do her level best to try and defuse an already stressful situation which was so perilously close to spiralling completely out of control.

"Darling, when... when you left Downton... so suddenly last Christmas, it was... it was because of Max, wasn't it?" she asked of Edith, interrupting gently.

Edith turned to Sybil, her surprise all too evident, etched clearly upon her face.

"Why yes" she said. "But how on earth did you..."  
"Did I know?" asked Sybil. "Call it a mother's intuition, I suppose". Sybil smiled warmly at Edith, and then looked pointedly at Mary, urging her to desist.

"Blimey!" exclaimed Mary. "So, is that all it takes? A mother's intuition? Well, in case it has escaped your notice, both of you, I happen to be a mother too!"

Then, from outside, as if in confirmation of Mary's boldly stated assertion there came incontrovertible proof of the same, as the sound of the excited voices of her two younger children outside on the platform now drifted audibly in through the window of the salle d'attente.

"There, what did I tell you?" she said triumphantly.

"But not quite in the same sense as either of us, I think" said Edith softly.

"Why, whatever do you mean by that?"

"When was the last time you ever got up to see to any of your children when they were ill at night? Did you, when they were infants, ever once change a nappy?" asked Edith with a sudden ferocity.

At that, Mary blanched, forbore to mention that the one and only time she had ever tried to follow Sybil's lead and change young Robert's soiled nappy, that one time had been more than enough. Never again had she vowed. In any case, after all, that was what nanny was there for.

"Don't you..." she began.  
"Mary, all Edith is saying is that you have others to attend to those sorts of things for you".

"Well so would you, if you hadn't run..."  
"Off with the chauffeur? Oh, Mary...

"Now don't you start that "Oh Mary" nonsense!" snapped the countess of Grantham.

Sybil shook her head in disbelief.

"Mary! After all this time! After everything that's happened since then! To bring that up again! Don't you remember, when Papa died, his very last words went not to you, not to Edith, not even to me, but to Tom?"

"Yes, I remember. Of course I remember" said Mary softly, her voice now suddenly losing some of it harshness.

At the time, she had never said just how bitterly hurt she had been by the fact that as he lay dying, fighting for his very last breath, in that remote valley on the western edge of the estate, that her beloved father's last thoughts went not to her, his first born, but to Tom Branson, her admittedly much loved brother-in-law, the ex-chauffeur turned republican journalist, and deputy editor of the Irish Independent.

Well, thought Mary, with a fleeting remembrance of her and Tom's encounter at the foot of the grand staircase of the Shelbourne Hotel, in the aftermath of the bombing back in the summer of 1919, the mistake she had made then as to the identity of his employer, at least I now know the name of the bloody paper for which he works.

**Author's Note:**

The Statute of Westminster, which was passed into law in December 1931, established legislative equality between the self-governing Dominions of the British Empire (such as Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, and New Zealand) effectively, making these countries legislatively independent of Great Britain. The Free State used the provisions of the Act to begin loosening any remaining ties with the United Kingdom.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

"A Right Bloody Mess"

A short while later, and Tom and Bobby had rejoined Matthew along with the other children on the platform outside the salle d'attente. On seeing his brother-in-law walking towards him, Matthew smiled, winked, and then nodded his head emphatically towards the door of the waiting room.

"Diplomatic secrets! The League of the Crawleys is still in plenary session! Why, it's worse than the three weird sisters meeting on the heath in Macbeth. But don't ever tell Mary I said so!" Matthew chuckled.

"My silence is easily bought. Shall we say a few games of billiards ...!" laughed Tom.

"Da! Da! Can we go and see the engine now, please?" begged Danny.

"Please father, may we?" asked Robert standing eager and expectantly by his cousin's side.

Tom glanced at Matthew, saw him smile, then nod his head slightly.

"All right boys!" agreed Tom with a laugh.

Leaving Bobby under the watchful eye of Saiorse, who had decided that she most definitely did **not** want to join her elder brother and her cousin in looking at the engine, and with nanny left in charge of both Simon and Rebecca, accompanied by their fathers, but to be truthful only in the loosest sense of the word, Danny and Robert now set off down the long platform. The two boys zigzagged on ahead, weaving an exuberant, high spirited passage through the mêlée of passengers waiting to board the train and towards where, at the far end of the station building, at the head of the carriages, a tall, dark column of smoke could be seen pillaring into the clear azure blue of the afternoon sky.

While the two young boys continued to race pell-mell ahead of them, the two men strolled along at a far more leisurely pace, Tom taking the opportunity thus presented to explain to Matthew what he thought he had overheard when he was in the public toilet with Bobby.

"... although, mind you, I dare say, I suppose I could have been mistaken".

"Well, either way Tom, I don't see there's very much we can do about it, at least not now anyway. After all, you can't be certain that the chap who nearly fell over the two of you was one of those you believe you overheard. And if they don't even then board the train..."

Matthew shrugged dismissively.

"I suppose you're right".

"Well, even if I'm not, they haven't, as far as I am aware, committed any crime, so all we can do is see what, if anything, transpires. And even if you are right, given what I had to say in the speech I gave in Geneva at the League of Nations, they could just as easily be interested in me rather than Edith and her young boy. By the way, I was very much impressed back in there, with, how shall I term it, your appreciation of the European situation".

Tom grinned broadly.

"Why, thanks Matthew!"

"It's a right bloody mess, Tom. And I very much fear it's going to get a whole lot worse, mark my words. Much worse indeed, with a significant and probably violent lurch to the Right, in Austria, and elsewhere too. Edith and her chap von Schönborn are right to be worried".

"It's the way things went in Italy, under Mussolini, back in '25 and, sadly, Matthew, I doubt it will be any different either in Austria or for that matter in Germany. There are rumours that she's starting to re-arm, but then, I expect you know that already. And, the situation in Hungary under Horthy is just as bad, ridiculous even: a rump of a country, now landlocked, ruled over by a former admiral. I ask you!" 

Matthew nodded, smiled gently at his friend. Even now, all these years later, it still amazed him how it was that his late father-in-law, God rest his soul, hadn't been able to see the great worth in his Irish son-in-law right from the very start of Tom's relationship with Sybil. Matthew could only assume that Robert Crawley simply hadn't wanted to do so; that at the time, in 1919, back before the Flood, the old social distinctions had blinded the late earl of Grantham to the qualities which Tom Branson undoubtedly possessed.

"As for here..." Tom now spread his hands expressively, looked about him, and shook his head in seeming disbelief'

"You mean France..." began Matthew.

"Indeed I do! France is an absolute mess, what with all the financial scandals and political instability. And, and as for the tin pot monarchies in the Balkans..." Tom shrugged in disgust.

Matthew nodded again.

"And to be perfectly frank, Matthew, I don't see the republic in Spain lasting either". He shook his head vigorously as if in negative confirmation of everything he had just said.

Evidently very much impressed, Matthew nodded his own agreement yet again. He knew from their discussions at Downton, that Tom was very well informed on a whole host of matters: his job demanded that he be. But, it wasn't just that. Tom Branson was widely read too, with, art, history, literature, and politics being just some of his many and varied interests.

Of course, Mary and Sybil knew that when the Bransons came over to Downton, which they did infrequently, then Tom and Matthew discussed all kinds of things after dinner during their seemingly interminable matches of billiards. Both of the men explained away their lengthy discussions to their wives by saying they always had such a great deal to catch up, which in part was true. But also, both had come to enjoy each other's company enormously.

"That, my dear chap, if I may say so, was a very succinct assessment of the political situation here in Europe. I'm very, very much impressed. You, my friend, should seriously think about going into politics!"

"That's what Sybil tells me. What she I **keeps on **telling him me! That's what many of our friends in Dublin, in Ireland, say as well! Tom grinned.

"And? Don't you fancy the idea?"

Tom laughed a hollow laugh.

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, but I think not. No offence Matthew, while there may be honour amongst thieves, there's none whatsoever in politicians!"

Ruefully, Matthew nodded his assent.

"They get on well together, those two, don't they?" Matthew nodded his head approvingly in the direction of their two rapidly disappearing sons.

"Rather like us then!" Tom smiled contentedly at his friend.

"Indeed! You know, Tom, I was just thinking..." Matthew grinned.

"About what?"

Matthew nodded his head emphatically back in the direction of the station waiting room where presumably Mary, Sybil, Edith and Max were still seated listening to whatever else it was that Edith had to impart to her two sisters.

"So, what do you think?" Matthew paused, and then laughed.

"Well, I have to say that in the particular circumstances, that was very diplomatic of you, Matthew, to suggest that we... take the boys down to see the engine", chuckled Tom.

"And, **given the particular circumstances**, I thought... er... that the Crawley girls might want to be on their own. In any event those two", Matthew nodded again this time in the direction of both Danny and Robert running down the platform in front of them, "are at the age where they might start asking awkward, even embarrassing questions. So, it seemed like a good idea to keep them out of the way... at least until the dust has settled! Mind you, I somehow suspect it will be a while before Mary recovers from the shock of it all! In fact, I also suspect that, metaphorically speaking, she's presently in orbit somewhere around Neptune!"

Tom laughed.

"I don't suppose Sybil is that far behind her either, although knowing her as I do I think she'll take a rather more pragmatic approach to the situation than Mary. Mind you, it's not often that Mary's rendered speechless!"  
"Although she often says she is, when in fact she's quite the reverse!" quipped Matthew.

Tom chuckled, and then nodded his head.

"Sybil's pretty much the same. But as for that..." he jabbed his thumb in the direction from whence they had just come, "well, if you don't mind me saying so, it was worth hearing the news, just to see the look on both their faces! But who'd have thought it, eh?"

Matthew shot his friend an amused glance.

"God knows what our esteemed late father-in-law would have said!"

Tom nodded.

"Let alone the late Dowager Countess. Do you think Cora has any idea about it at all?"  
"I very much doubt it" said Matthew. "As you know, she left Downton for Southampton two days before we all caught the train up to London. If she did know, she didn't let on and kept very quiet about it. And that, my dear friend, as well you know, isn't really Cora's style. Anyway she's now somewhere in the mid Atlantic on board the Majestic and can't be contacted".

"You could always send her a telegram!" Tom nudged his friend affectionately in the ribs.

"Somehow, Tom, I really don't think that would be a very good idea, do you?" Matthew shot the Irishman another amused look.

"No, I think you're probably right" reflected Tom.

"In any case, Cora's mother isn't very well, she's been ailing for some time now, so I think it's for the best... Now, where have the boys got to?"

"There they are" said Tom directly and pointing in the direction of two indistinct shapes faintly visible through the steamy murk ahead of them, and now standing by the side of the locomotive.

As the two men walked slowly towards their two young sons, Matthew suddenly stopped, stood still. Tom did likewise.

"What..." began Tom, but his friend forestalled him.

"You know I'm sure I've heard of Friedrich von Schönborn before; during the war that is. While I was over in France, I got chatting to a couple of our lads with the Royal Flying Corps. They'd had the misfortune to come up against von Richtofen and his pals, but, now I come to think of it I seem to remember them mentioning an Austrian air ace, over on the Eastern Front. I'm almost certain the name they mentioned was von Schönborn. Apparently, he'd even been decorated by the Emperor Karl himself no less".

They resumed walking.

"The one who died in exile, on Madeira? The emperor, I mean?"  
"The very same. I suppose it could be the same von Schönborn" said Matthew thoughtfully.

Tom nodded.

"Perhaps, and if you say so, but don't look to me for confirmation of the fact, Matthew. My own war service was decidedly undistinguished, as well you know!"  
"Apart from your meticulously planned attack with the contents of a silver soup tureen!" chuckled Matthew.

"Well, yes, apart from that! And I don't know about the meticulous planning. After all, it ended in abject failure. Just as well I suppose! Mind you, Danny was all ears when Sybil told him about it, a few months ago, wanted to know what it was I'd put in the pot!"

"Did you tell him?" Matthew chuckled.

Tom grinned.

"Certainly not! I didn't want to give him the wrong kind of ideas!"

**Author's Note:**

Mussolini had been in power in Italy since 1922, establishing a Fascist dictatorship in that country in 1925.

Miklós Horthy de Nagybánya (1868-1957) was a former admiral in the Austro-Hungarian navy and served as Regent of the Kingdom of Hungary from 1920 until 1944.

Spain had become a republic, and for the second time, in 1931.

RMS Majestic, launched in Germany in 1914 as the Bismarck, was a beautiful transatlantic liner, which after the end of the Great War was acquired by the White Star Line, and her name changed.

Until April 1918, when it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force, the Royal Flying Corps was the air arm of the British Army.

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (1892-1918) a German fighter ace of the Great War, known better as "The Red Baron".

Emperor Karl I (1887-1922) last emperor of Austria-Hungary (1916-18) and as Charles IV last king of Hungary (1916-18) has been described as "the only decent man to come out of the [Great War] in a leadership position [who] sincerely wanted peace ... [but] no-one listened to him". After his second failed attempt to regain the throne of Hungary (in 1921) the Allies exiled Karl, his wife Zita, and their seven young children to Madeira, where, sadly, the former emperor died of pneumonia in 1922, at the early age of thirty four.

Beatified by Pope John Paul II in October 2004, it is likely that the last emperor of Austria-Hungary will soon be declared a saint.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Nosebleed

Becoming all too aware that both Edith and Sybil were sitting watching her expectantly, Mary's ready temper flared once again.

"And by employing a nanny, does that some how make me some kind of monster? Well, does it?" she raged, her forbearance with the present situation, at least as she saw it, finally breaking, her anger spilling over.

"No, of course not, Mary. It just makes you... well... different in that regard... from the two of us. That's all", offered Sybil gently.

"From **you **perhaps!" Mary thundered. "But not, from Edith I'll wager. After all, I can't see **you** doing that sort of thing - changing nappies and so forth. Doesn't this Frit... Friedrich von whatever... He must have servants surely?"  
"Yes, of course he does. Yes, of course we do" said Edith.

"Well then..." snapped Mary.

"But, I've always been far more involved looking after Max, with his upbringing, than you ever were with any of your three".

"Oh really? And just how do you manage to do that from Egypt, or wherever it is you're digging? I assume you don't take the boy along with you?"  
"No, Mary, much as he'd like to accompany me, I don't take **Max** along with meand for a very good reason too. In any case, I would have thought that by now, you would have realised that I haven't spent nearly quite as much time in the Near East, excavating my old relics, as you so charmingly once called them, as you and the rest of the family might once have thought".

"Evidently not" said Mary flatly, also making a mental note to have a word with Matthew about respecting confidences exchanged over the dinner table.

"Where then?"  
"At Friedrich's estate. It's called Rosenberg. It's about an hour or so south of Vienna by motor, close to the Wienerwald, the Vienna Woods, with views of the Alps too".

"How positively charming! It sounds utterly idyllic", said Mary sarcastically.

"It is" said Edith. "And the roses there are absolutely magnificent".

"In which case, I'm only surprised that you can bear to leave it so often then!"  
"Well sometimes I have no choice, especially..."  
"I suppose when he's not with you, **Max **is away at school?"  
"No, he isn't" said Edith. "Although, you of all people would think that. After all, from what Matthew said to me at Christmas, I believe you can't wait to pack Robert off to boarding school, and no doubt Simon too".

"And just why is that? Don't they have boarding schools in Austria then?" asked Mary heatedly, making a mental note to have a further word with Matthew, again in private, about what she saw as yet another unforgiveable betrayal.

Mary knew Matthew didn't want either of their boys to go away to school, had been making enquiries regarding their admission to the grammar school in nearby Ripon. The school had an excellent reputation, but it was neither Eton, nor Harrow. To be scrupulously truthful, Mary didn't want Robert and Simon to go away to school either, but how could she tell Matthew that, when, it had been she herself who had first suggested it. She considered to do so now would result in a serious loss of face - for her.

Not that she would ever admit to it, even to herself, but Mary had always envied Tom and Sybil their open, easy going relationship. From the very outset, they had always been the same, like the two sides of the same coin, loved each other desperately, knew each other's most intimate thoughts, had no secrets from one another, and were in fact like the proverbial peas in the pod.

Much as she loved Matthew equally desperately, increasingly, a small part of her aristocratic upbringing railed silently against what Mary saw as his total lack of aristocratic pretensions, of which eating one of Danny's gobstoppers in public on the platform at Victoria station was but a symptom.

She knew too, just how much darling Matthew hated what she herself saw as tradition, and what he considered to be the pointless flummery and nonsense associated with being earl of Grantham, one of England's premier peers. Why, if he could, she knew Matthew would have reduced their domestic staff still further, would even, if he thought she would ever have tolerated it even for an instant, have shut up most of the abbey. After all, he'd already overseen the sale of Grantham House up in London, a property that had been in **her** family for six generations. From all accounts, it was now some ghastly third rate hotel, its amenities no doubt used for afternoon assignations by middle class lovers. That was something which Lady Lavinia Leventhorpe had taken great pleasure in telling Mary about, when she had encountered both her and Matthew at the Lord Lieutenant's Ball last autumn. Why, oh why, did the awful woman have to be called Lavinia? It was utterly unforgivable and something for which Mary was prepared to detest the simpering creature for on sight.

If the truth be told, this whole trip to Italy, both for the Bransons, as well as for the Crawleys, had only come about because of the generous legacies granny had left to all three of her grand daughters in her will. After all, even with his new position at the newspaper, Tom and Sybil wouldn't have been able to afford it.

In fact, as far as Mary was aware, they'd never ever had a proper holiday in their entire married life. Not that they seemed to mind, unless day trips out to Ciaran's farm - Mary had still not forgotten that ride in the waggonette - or else taking the children down onto the beach to go swimming in the sea and to hunt for crabs, at where was it, oh yes, Blackrock, could be said to count as such.

Those day trips to the coast had proved a bone of contention between both Mary and Matthew. Several years ago, one morning at breakfast, having heard from his arch conspirator Tom, about the Bransons repeated day trips down to the beach at Blackrock - at the time, the Bransons had been at Downton for one of their infrequent visits - Matthew had unilaterally pronounced, that such jaunts sounded such incredible fun. When she herself had learned of her husband's own view of such trips, from her maid, Hodges, Mary had nearly choked on her kedgeree, looked daggers at Tom that night at dinner, and decided there and then, that she and Matthew, bedroom sport apart (and these days **that **was strictly rationed too as Mary, then expecting Rebecca, had no intention whatsoever of going through another pregnancy) must obviously have very different ideas as to what constituted fun.

Mary suspected that what happened next had also been wholly down to Tom as well, although she could never prove it, as a few days later, the Bransons had left for Ireland, which was probably just as well for Tom, as Mary was by then contemplating paying a purposeful visit to the Gun Room. Such a visit, would, if it had been carried out, might well have left Sybil a widow with three small children: and Mary herself on trial for the wilful murder of her lovable Irish brother-in-law.

The subsequent publicity would, reflected Mary, have been singularly unfortunate, but then it couldn't be helped, and, after all, the family had weathered a similar storm over Bates several years earlier. Her likely subsequent conviction, for murder, presented something more of a problem.

The British courts did not recognise, as did the French, the idea of a crime of passion - un crime passionnel - for that is what, in Mary's view it would undoubtedly have been, as she was **passionately** against undertaking day trips to the seaside. Of course the benefit, though she would not have lived to enjoy it, would have been incalculable, in that it would undoubtedly have put a stop, and permanently, to any more of darling Tom's oh-so helpful little suggestions made to Matthew over breakfast, let alone after dinner, over billiards.

Undeterred, at least by Mary's decided lack of interest, again at breakfast the following day, Matthew had voiced his suggestion to Robert, that the Crawleys - by which he apparently meant Mary, the boys, and himself, all undertake similar day trips; in their case, both to Scarborough, where that old duffer Strallan would finally breathe his last, as well as to other places along the Yorkshire coast, where, apparently, there were sandy beaches, rock pools, and what Matthew chose to term "good swimming". There was, decided Mary, who had been absolutely appalled by the whole idea, nothing good about swimming in the sea. Barrow was equally appalled. Having overheard Matthew's proposal at breakfast, and again repeated over dinner that evening, this time when Matthew broached the subject once more and now to Mary directly, on catching her eye, had raised his own heavenwards, towards the dining room ceiling, in a manner which put Mary immediately in mind of her father.

Undeterred by Mary's decided lack of enthusiasm, if not downright opposition to the whole idea, much to young Robert and Simon's infinite delight, their father pressed on with duly making the necessary arrangements and so it was, that during that never-to-be-forgotten summer of 1928, much to Mary's chagrin, Matthew and the two boys undertook several day excursions over to the Yorkshire coast. Pointedly, Mary herself stayed at home.

Apparently, all three of them, Matthew included, enjoyed themselves no end, so much so, that that seemingly, all they did for days afterwards, at least according to Matthew's own mother, was do nothing but babble about their expeditions, their conversations revolving around donkey rides on the beach, hunting for crabs like Tom and Sybil's children did over in Ireland,, swimming in the sea, and eating sticks of rock, as well as something called candy floss, which when Mary found out what it was, she was absolutely horrified. In fact, she was undecided as to which of the three of them enjoyed these trips the most, suspecting that it was probably Matthew himself. Papa and Mamma had been no help either, in fact, worse than useless, Mary's father observing that it all sounded such wonderful fun, and that if he hadn't been feeling his age, he would happily have gone with them.

As for the Crawleys, they would not have been making this present trip to Italy either, had it not been for granny's largesse and the Ashingtons offering them gratis, the use of their charming villa overlooking both Florence and the valley of the Arno. After all, Matthew, in his continuing drive for efficiency and making savings on the running the estate, would never otherwise have agreed to it. Yes, at times, thought Mary, Matthew could be relied upon to be so middle class with his preoccupation with how every last penny was spent.

"Yes, of course there are boarding schools in Austria, but we've no intention of sending Max to one. He'll continue to be tutored at home, just as he is now".

Edith's pronouncement as to her own son's future education was like a red rag to a bull. 

"Tutored at home? How very democratic of you!" said Mary not bothering to sheath her sarcasm. "Well, really, not even **we** can afford to do that!"

"Mary, please. Wait, just a moment" said Sybil sensing again that there was still something Edith had still not told the two of them. The countess of Grantham looked quizzically at her youngest sister, and then relented.

"Oh very well" Mary said and with none too good a grace.

"Edith, I take it, when you left Downton last Christmas to travel back to Vienna, because of Max, it was because he was ill?" Sybil asked.

"Yes" said Edith flatly. "It was".

"Do you mind me asking what was wrong with him? I assume it must have been serious, for you to leave Downton the way you did, without even saying goodbye".

"Yes, it was. For him", said Edith laconically. She hugged her son to her, kissed the top of his head, and murmured to him some endearment in German.

"What exactly?"

"He... he had... He had a nosebleed" said Edith softly.

"He had a **what**?" demanded Mary not believing the evidence of her own ears.

"You heard what I said" replied Edith.

"A nosebleed" repeated Mary woodenly. "You left Downton without even saying goodbye, and went all the way back to Vienna, because your son had a ruddy nosebleed? Well, I don't believe it! Good God, Edith, as far as I am aware, all my children have had nosebleeds at some time or other. So too I expect have Sybil's".

Mary looked questioningly at her youngest sister for confirmation. Silently, absent mindedly, her mind in turmoil, weakly, Sybil nodded her assent. In fact, the worst person in the Branson household for nosebleeds for years had long been Sybil herself, something she'd never quite understood. They'd started quite suddenly, when she was about eleven or twelve; were, on occasions unaccountably very heavy indeed.

However, the dubious honour for the worst nosebleeds in the family had now passed firmly to young Bobby who, apart from the usual childhood ailments, along with the usual run each winter of colds and coughs, seemed perfectly fit and healthy.

In fact, Bobby's very last bad nosebleed had occurred just last Christmas, at Downton, when, suffering from a particularly heavy cold, he had sneezed very violently several times, after which he had started to bleed profusely from his nostrils. Eventually, the bleeding stopped, but not until after Sybil had insisted that the new local doctor, a young chap by the name of Bradshaw, Dr. Clarkson's successor, be called. After all, it was not the first time this had happened.

Dr. Bradshaw had examined the little lad, recommended nothing more than the insertion of gauze nasal plugs until the bleeding stopped, which, of course, it did ... eventually.

According to the doctor, the bleeding had been caused by the bout of heavy sneezing, which in turn had ruptured some of the minute blood vessels in the nasal cavities. He said that it was nothing to worry about. Tom had seemed perfectly content with what the young doctor had to say by way of explanation, and given that the bleeding did finally stop, saw no reason for any undue concern. Nonetheless, Sybil herself **did** remain concerned, seemingly unconvinced by the doctor's most prosaic of explanations. After all, Tom had not seen what she herself had once witnessed, had obviously forgotten what she had told him.

"Well then..." began Mary.

"Only..."

"Only what?" Mary persisted.

"Only none of your children can die of a nosebleed" said Edith quietly.

"Die... of a nosebleed?" asked Mary scornfully. "No-one ever dies of a nosebleed".

She looked at Sybil seemingly seeking reassurance and found there none, saw Sybil was regarding their young nephew thoughtfully, with a searching look, and in that look she saw something else too: heartfelt pity.

"That's just where you're wrong Mary" said Edith softly. "My son can". 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

As Old As Time Itself

"Can do what?"

"Die of a nosebleed".

"Rubbish!" scoffed Mary.

Beside her, Edith heard Sybil's sudden intake of breath, saw her look again at the faded bruises on Max's knee, on his elbow, saw too, realising now, for the first time, that however good looking, just how deathly pale the little boy was.

"You know, don't you, what's wrong with him?" asked Edith quietly, her eyes searching Sybil's face.

"Yes, I think I do. If, it's what I think it is. There was a newborn at the Coombe, some years ago now... a little boy..." Sybil said, remembering back to a scene of unspeakable horror which she had witnessed but a couple of years ago at the hospital where she worked in Dublin.

Before it happened, no-one at the Coombe had ever seen the like and so shocked had Sybil been that she had been unable to speak of it, even to darling Tom, until he had gently coaxed it out of her several days later, after she had been unusually morose and verging on the monosyllabic.

What then occurred, took place during a night shift at the Coombe, which, but for this one, single incident, would like most others, and been completely unremarkable. Suddenly and unaccountably, a newborn baby had begun to haemorrhage uncontrollably from the navel. Nothing she did, nothing the doctors did, nothing any of them did, made the slightest difference. In a matter of hours, the child, who to all intents was perfectly healthy when born, was dead.

"Know what?" asked Mary, annoyed yet again that there was something which obviously both Edith and Sybil knew, and she didn't.

"It's haemophilia, isn't it?" Sybil asked, reaching out and hugging Edith to her.

Edith, now losing the battle with her tears, for the moment simply nodded, while Mary looked on appalled, not sure if she had understood what it was Sybil had just said.

Meanwhile, Max slipped his small arm comfortingly around his mother.

"Nicht weinen, mutter, bitter" he said plaintively. While neither Sybil nor Mary spoke German, the young boy's meaning was only all too obvious to the both of his aunts.

At length, regaining some kind of control over her emotions, Edith said simply:

"Yes, Max has haemophilia. And he inherited it from me". Edith paused, seemed to be staring into the middle distance.

"And what precisely is ... what did you just call it?" asked Mary.

"Haemophilia. It's a blood disorder. In someone who suffers from it, the substance which makes the blood clot is missing" explained Sybil.

"Just as well you're a nurse, darling. I've never even heard of it. And you said you gave this to your little boy?" asked Mary still not quite comprehending what it was she was hearing.

Edith nodded.

"But how?"

"It passes from the mother to the baby at conception" said Sybil patiently.

Mary grimaced.

"It's been known about for a very long time, for centuries in fact. The initial problem is with the mother, although she won't even know that there is anything wrong at all. She is most likely to have inherited the condition from..."

Sybil stopped in mid-sentence as realisation suddenly dawned.

"What is it?" asked Mary.

Sybil shook her head, swallowed hard.

"I was about to say that the woman inherits the condition from her own mother. But that would mean..."  
"That Mama herself is a carrier" added Edith quietly, so quietly in fact that Mary seemed not to have heard or, if she had, failed to understand the potential implications.

"Yes I realised that too, a very long time ago, from my discussions with various doctors".

Edith sighed emphatically.

"When did you first find out, about Max?" asked Sybil gently.

"I'm not sure when exactly. Looking back, he was always such a chubby, happy, smiling little baby. Of course, you'll not be at all surprised when I tell you that he suffered all the usual bumps and falls that any child does when learning to crawl and then to walk. But what was ever so slightly unusual, and both Friedrich and I noticed it, was that when he knocked himself, he did seem to bruise very easily, but neither of us ever suspected that it could be anything other than a propensity to do just that; to bruise more easily than most youngsters do".

Mary nodded her head.

"You said this is passed by the mother to her child?" she asked.  
"It can be" said Sybil.

"What do you mean, it can be? Either it is or it isn't" said Mary flatly.

"The disease is capricious. Sometimes it is passed on by the mother and sometimes it isn't. And only male children suffer from their blood not clotting properly. And even, then not all of them. It can strike some male offspring and miss others completely" offered Sybil.

Edith nodded in agreement.

"As Sybil said, the substance that should make his blood clot doesn't work properly, so if Max cuts himself, then he bleeds a very great deal. The doctors in Vienna have told us that if Max has the misfortune to cut his finger, his hand, or his knee, having cleaned and dressed the wound, it must then be bandaged very tightly and, eventually, the bleeding will stop".

"So, I suppose you have to be very vigilant then, to see that Max doesn't cut himself. That must be an awful bind for you, or for whoever else looks after him, while you're away digging up your old relics!" observed Mary.

"That's one way of putting it" said Edith mildly.

"Well how else would you put it, darling? I grant you it must be very troublesome, and don't I know it. But it's not the end of the world! Why, when my two boys were younger, they were forever having accidents usually as a result of racing about the grounds at Downton, climbing trees and more often than not falling out of them, pedalling their bicycles like whirling dervishes around the outside of the house. They both came off those far more than either of them ever came off their ponies!""

"I'm afraid that anything like climbing trees, riding a bicycle, let alone a pony, are completely out of the question for Max, Friedrich is most dreadfully upset about it. He's such an excellent horseman and would have so enjoyed teaching Max how to ride", said Edith sadly.

"Well yes, I suppose all of it would be. How awfully tiresome! After all, you couldn't take the risk now, could you?" Mary empathised, nodding her head in complete agreement, as though she understood fully the nature of Edith's predicament.

"But you see that's just the start…" began Edith, but Mary cut her off.

"Of course, I blame Matthew. Well, at least in part. He's never been one to exercise any kind of discipline over the boys. I suppose that's why they love their father so much and see me as some kind of monster. I'll have you know, there was a time, when either Robert or Simon, one or the other of them, often it was both, always seemed to have cut his hand or else grazed or scraped his knee. And do you know, darlings, what the most infuriating thing was?"

Edith and Sybil collectively shook their heads, realising that whatever it was Mary considered infuriating, most people would likely consider no more than a minor irritation.

"I couldn't possibly begin to imagine" observed Edith coolly.

"Nor I" added Sybil impassively.

"Well, the most infuriating thing was that such accidents always seemed to happen at the worst possible moment in time, when we had guests arriving, that sort of thing. I mean can you imagine the embarrassment of having Sir Austen Chamberlain the Foreign Secretary arriving at Downton for dinner, to be greeted by Simon howling and screaming the place down, all because he'd fallen out of a tree and cut his knee".

"How absolutely dreadful!" said Edith acerbically.

"How awfully inconvenient for you" agreed Sybil with equal solemnity. But her sarcasm was wasted. Mary seemed not even to notice.

"Darling it was! Of course, nanny dealt with whatever it was that needed to be done, but I'll have you know that it didn't stop me worrying all through dinner, so much so that often I ate scarcely a thing. But, after our guests had left, when Matthew and I at last went up, I always made sure to ask nanny how the injured party was faring. Of course, being a girl, Rebecca's always been so much easier to deal with, at least from that standpoint. I suppose your three were very much the same, Sybil?"

"More or less" said Sybil. "They were always getting into scrapes, although when Danny or Saiorse were little and hurt themselves, cleaning them up, dressing their cuts and bruises fell to either Tom or else to me to undertake. Of course these days it's usually Bobby who's in the wars, but it's still Tom or I who has to put him back together again".

"Well of course I suppose it would be. But then you've an advantage over the two of us, darling, what with you being a nurse". Mary smiled a thin smile.

"But what I've told you so far, that's only part of it".

"What do you mean, part of it?" For the very first time during this whole conversation, the timbre of Mary's voice registered alarm and was tinged faintly with a smidgen of concern.

Edith paused. There was obviously more, but she seemed either unable or else unwilling to carry on explaining any further the full extent of Max's illness. She took a deep breath.

"It's when he bleeds inside..." she began.

"**Inside**? Whatever do you mean by that?" asked Mary, genuinely perplexed by what Edith had just said.

"If Max just happens to knock his elbow, perhaps on the edge of a table, jars his knee when walking, or even twists his ankle, then that can start bleeding in the affected joint. Sometimes all it takes is the slightest tap. The blood can flow for hours, seeping slowly into the joint. Once there it begins to put pressure on the nerves and attack the bone. While the bleeding lasts, the pain is terrible for him, unbearable, and short of giving him morphine there's nothing that can be done. At least, that's what Friedrich and I have been told".

At that, Mary visibly blanched. Like their late father, she was not at all good with hearing about any kind of medical details, but so far in this conversation she had done her level best, to overcome her natural reluctance to talk about such matters.

"But he looks so... so normal. Edith, darling, are you really certain about all of this? Any of it? Perhaps... perhaps it's something else, which... which he'll grow out of as he gets older?"

Sadly, Edith shook her head.

"No, Mary. It isn't. And there's no question of any mistake, I can assure you both of that. The two of us, Friedrich and I, have taken Max to see countless doctors and specialists all over Austria, including a Jewish doctor by the name of Lowenstein, at the Vienna General Hospital. Friedrich told me that it was another doctor working there some thirty years ago, who first discovered blood groups. But all of the doctors say the same thing. It is definitely haemophilia, and for that there is no cure".

"There must be medicines, surely. There must be something they can do..." began Mary

Edith shook her head.

"There isn't. We've been told that in all likelihood... Well, twenty or thereabouts..." Edith's voice faltered, and then fell silent.

"But the bleeding, inside, when it happens, it must stop some time, otherwise Max would ..." Eyeing the little boy with heartfelt compassion, Mary smiled hesitantly at the young boy, was warmed by receiving a shy smile in return. She reached forward, rested her hand lightly on Max's arm.

"You poor darling" she said softly.

Max looked questioningly at his mother.

"Was hat sie gesagt?" he asked.

Edith answered her son in German.

"Max wanted to know what you said, so I told him".

Mary nodded, smiled again, a smile which she reserved for very few. Young Max grinned and his own smile broadened.

"Danke. Das ist sehr freundlich".

"He says you're very kind. In answer to your question, Mary, yes, of course the bleeding stops... eventually. When no more blood can flow into the affected joint, the pressure will at last make a clot form and then slowly, ever so slowly, gradually, the process of re-absorption will begin. But until it does, the blood continues to attack the bone. As I said, the pain for him is excruciating. But, he can be fine for months at a time and seem just like any other little boy. Then something will happen and it will all begin again. Sometimes, there is no need for a bump or a knock to start him bleeding inside. It just does. And while the bleeding continues, there's nothing anyone can do. And it's all my fault!"

"It isn't your fault" said Sybil gently.

"Oh but it is! It is! I gave it to him! It was me that did that!" Edith began to sob.

""No, it isn't! You mustn't blame yourself for this! I understand why you might, because a woman who is herself unwittingly a carrier of the disease can pass it on to her children. But it doesn't always happen that way. No-one knows why!"

At that, Mary blanched, swallowed hard, and then did something totally unexpected, either by herself or Edith. Looking sorrowfully at her sister, she reached forward, and took Edith's hands gently in her own.

"I am so dreadfully, dreadfully sorry for you, and for your little boy" said Mary with all the force of simplicity, her eyes glistening with tears. Although Max did not understand her words, from both his aunt's tone and from the sorrow he saw in her eyes, he knew she was being kind. It was now his turn to reach forward and enfold his aunt's hand in his own.

"So now I think you understand why what in anyone else would be just a simple nosebleed could prove fatal to Max. And ... there's something else too. Something that I need to ask you. Both of you" said Edith.

**Author's note:**

"Haemophilia is as old as man. It has come down through the centuries, misted in legend, shrouded with the dark dread of a hereditary curse... Because over the last one hundred years it has appeared in the ruling houses of Britain, Russia and Spain, it has been called "the royal disease"... It remains one of the most mysterious and malicious of all the genetic, chronic diseases".

Robert K. Massie in "Nicholas and Alexandra".

Of course the most famous haemophiliac of all was the Tsarevitch Alexei (1904-18), the only son and heir of Nicholas II, last Tsar of all the Russias. In 1932 there really was no effective way of managing the illness, and boys suffering from its effects were lucky to survive beyond their early twenties.

Even today, in 2014, while the causes of the disease, in all its various forms, are much better understood, and those suffering from haemophilia can be much more effectively treated, there still remains no cure.

Sir Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937) was a British politican and statesman, who held many high official appointments, including that of Foreign Secretary (1924-29).

The unnamed doctor referred to in this chapter was Dr. Karl Landsteiner (1868-1943) an Austrian biologist and physician, who was the first person to identify the main blood groups, something which he achieved as far back as 1900.

One final observation. Recently I have been taken to task by several guest reviewers, and to whom of course I cannot reply directly, over my portrayal of Mary. All I will say on this issue is please wait and see what unfolds.

TIC


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

A Favour To Ask Of You

"Which is what, precisely?" asked Mary.

"Well, you remember what Matthew said, when I told you something of the problems in Austria, about Friedrich's dislike for what is starting to happen there politically, about how outspoken he's been?"

Mary nodded.

"Not that I for one can pretend I understand anything about it of course. After all, I leave all that sort of thing to Matthew. Now, if, on the other hand, it had been to do with the latest gossip doing the rounds about the Lascelles, or who is likely to become Master of the Bramham Moor Hunt, then I would probably be able to tell you a thing or two, but as it isn't I can't, although speaking of Matthew, both he and darling Tom seemed to grasp what it was you were saying".

Sybil glanced at Mary and then smiled broadly. It was singularly odd. Since the Great War, the world had changed so very much, yet for someone in Mary's position it seemed not to have changed at all.

"Well, it's because of what is starting to happen in Austria that Friedrich and I desperately need to make some form of provision for Max".

"Provision?" Mary's ever expressive eyebrows lifted. "From what you said about Friedrich's family, money can't surely be a problem, unlike it is for some of us of course".

Again Sybil found herself smiling.

Mary was her eldest sister and, for all her social conceit and snobbery Sybil loved her dearly. But honestly! For Mary to think the Crawleys had financial worries when others elsewhere, especially in England, Ireland and in the States had lost everything in the crash of '29, when millions were without employment and with no prospect of finding jobs, Mary seemed completely oblivious to how the other half lived.

Even Mama's own brother, their Uncle Harold, like Sir Richard Carlisle, had lost heavily in the Wall Street Crash. Although Mama had never said so, Harold Levinson was rumoured to be in a private clinic in East Hampton, New York, which, in part, apart from her own mother being ailing, had, thought Sybil, prompted Mama's present trip to the States on board the Majestic. When, through her own medical contacts, Sybil had made certain enquiries as to the clinic concerned, she was not unduly surprised to learn that it specialised in treating alcoholics.

That apart, from what Tom had said to her at Christmas, Mary genuinely seemed not to really appreciate all the hard work Matthew had put in, both before and after he succeeded darling Papa as earl of Grantham, in order to right the years of neglect and profligacy - and for which their own dearest Papa was largely responsible - and so put Downton on as secure a financial footing for the future as he possibly could.

Sybil knew that Mary had been bitterly opposed to the sale of Grantham House up in London, seemed unable to accept that the world for which it had been built had already passed into history. Even dear Aunt Rosamund, now increasingly infirm, had been forced to retrench and move to more modest accommodation on the outskirts of leafy Wendover in what was called Metro-land. Still, as Aunt Rosamund pithily observed, it was preferable to living in Pinner and there were compensations: the Rothschilds lived nearby at Waddesdon Manor.

"No. It's nothing at all to do with money. That's not the issue. Well, not really. And then, of course, there's the problem of what we do about Dr. Lowenstein".

"Oh Edith, don't be so obtuse. And just who exactly, is Dr. Lowenstein?"

"Oh, didn't I say? Forgive me. He's the specialist, the doctor who's been treating Max, at least for the last few years, first at the General Hospital in Vienna, but more recently at his own private clinic near Salzburg, close to the Untersberg. In fact, he was in charge of the transfusion Max had there last year. The problem is that Dr. Lowenstein is Jewish. But after what happened at the Café Produktenbörse back in'29 and then at the Sperlhof in Leopoldstadt this year, we may soon have to find another doctor".

"Why? Whatever do you mean? What does what happened in a café have to do with the doctor who's been treating Max?"

"As I told you, Dr. Lowenstein is Jewish, and increasingly the Jews in Vienna are being made to feel they are no longer welcome in Austria. The places I just mentioned?"

Mary nodded.

"Well, both the places I mentioned were Jewish cafés, in Vienna. They were ransacked and wrecked, and those in them at the time, were beaten up by thugs. Friedrich says that those responsible were most likely members of the Christian Social Party. He was with Dr. Lowenstein at the Sperlhof when it was attacked. He tried to intervene, to protect Lowenstein, to prevent what was happening, and for his pains, ended up with several cracked ribs".  
"Blimey! The people you mention don't sound very Christian to me" observed Mary laconically. Edith nodded her head in full agreement.

"Indeed. I quite agree. And there have been many other similar attacks on Jews in Vienna as well, and on their property too. Some people, many in fact, are now saying openly that Jewish doctors shouldn't even treat Christian children. Quite a few Jews have left Austria already and the way things are going, I'm sure others will follow, including Dr. Lowenstein. I don't know what we will do if he leaves Vienna, but he has a wife and a young family to think of. I know he has relatives in the Netherlands, so maybe they'll go there, or else to Poland where I believe he also has family".

"And all because he's Jewish? But that's absolutely ridiculous!"

"Ridiculous or not, that's what been happening in Austria in the last few years. And it's getting worse, much worse. That's why I need you to promise me something Mary".

"And what is that pray?"  
"That if anything should ever happen, either to Friedrich… or to me that Max can come to you in England".

"He could come to us in Dublin. I know Tom would agree" offered Sybil immediately.

"That's very sweet of you darling, but you haven't the room and what with both Tom and you working, I don't think it would be fair to expect you to take on looking after Max as well. But thank you all the same". Edith smiled, squeezed Sybil's hand in appreciation of her younger sister's offer, recognising that it had been made from the heart.

When Mary still demurred, said nothing, appalled, Edith reached forward, grasped her eldest sister's hand.

"Do you want me to beg, Mary? Is that it?"

Mary recoiled. She looked horrified. 

"No, of course not. But if things are as bad as you say they are, Edith, then why on earth don't both of you, don't all three of you, leave Austria now, and go somewhere else, even come to England?"  
"Because Austria means as much to Friedrich, as Ireland does to Tom, as I suspect Downton does to you" said Edith. "His family are there too, whatever they may think of me, of our relationship. And, if Max survives, whether or not we marry, Friedrich intends for him to inherit Rosenberg. He's already made provision for it, in his will. But whatever happens, I know Friedrich will never leave Austria, and, although he's tried his very best to get me to agree to doing so, since I'm not prepared to leave without him, there's nothing more to be said!" she said defiantly.

At Edith's words, Sybil found herself thinking back to a long gone January evening in the small lamp lit kitchen of Ma's homely house in Clontarf where, early in 1920, she and darling Tom had their first serious quarrel, all over the question of them both returning to Downton.

"…_and __**I'm**__ not leaving Ireland. Not now; I can't!"_

_"Can't or won't?"  
"Can't then!"_

_"And __**I'm**__ not leaving without you. So there's an end to it!" _

Sybil had only to close her eyes to see darling Tom as he had been then, standing by the kitchen table, in his shirtsleeves, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his collar undone, his tie pulled awry, his face flushed from the heat of the range, with tears starting in his eyes, running his hands impatiently through his already ruffled hair.

Every detail of that quarrel had stuck in Sybil's mind not only because it had been their first serious disagreement, but also because it was the first of only a handful of times in their entire married life that Tom had raised his voice to her. He was normally so gentle, so deeply loving and Sybil had to admit, if only to herself, that on that handful of occasions, she had been largely to blame for what had followed. And with Tom firmly in mind, Sybil knew that if Friedrich von Schönborn felt as passionately about Austria as Tom did about Ireland, then, whatever the risks posed to him by staying, she for one could well understand his heartfelt reluctance to leave his own homeland.

"You still haven't said, Mary… if the need arises, if things become… awkward, that I can send Max to you for safety in England. I need you to promise me, that you'll do as I ask. If money's a problem, then Friedrich has an account with Barings in London. He's quite willing to deposit a substantial sum to defray any expenses, medical bills, that sort of thing. Obviously it won't be forever, especially if…" Again Edith's voice faltered.

"Darling, don't be so awfully middle class. Of course things at Downton are not quite as they once were, but we haven't had to sell the family silver; in any case, Barrow would never allow it. And darling Matthew hasn't demanded that I start taking in laundry to help defray the bills, at least not just yet, so, I'm sure we'll be able to sort something out. But I'm certain it won't ever come to that".

Despite all of Edith's tragic news, Sybil now found herself smiling inwardly. The very thought of Mary, working in a hot, steaming laundry, beavering away like some Chinese washer woman, really was too delicious for words. Why, it was just like something out of the Fu Manchu stories which Tom had read to Danny when he was younger and which Danny was now reading for himself.

Edith sighed heavily, and then shook her head.

"I wish I shared your optimism, Mary, really I do. So you promise faithfully, that you'll take Max in, if…"

"Darling, after all of what you've just told the two of us, how could I possibly refuse? Of course he can come". Mary smiled warmly, ruffled Max's hair.

"Leave it with me, darling. I shall have to talk it over with Matthew, but don't worry, when I tell him why, I know he'll agree. After all, when I set my mind on something, invariably, I always get my own way".

**Author's Note:**

Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood (1882-1947) married (at Westminster Abbey in 1922) Princess Mary (1897-1965), the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary. The Lascelles lived at Goldsborough Hall in Yorkshire. They had two sons but the marriage was reported to be extremely unhappy.

Founded in the 1740s, the Bramham Moor Hunt is one of the oldest fox hunts in Yorkshire.

East Hampton: a wealthy village situated in Suffolk County, in New York State.

Wendover: a market town at the foot of the Chilterns in Buckinghamshire,  
England.

Metro-land: the name given to the suburban areas built to the north west of London in Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex in the early part of the twentieth century and which were all served by the Metropolitan Railway.

Once a village, Pinner is now a very wealthy suburb of north-west London.

At this time, the Rothschilds were a very wealthy Jewish banking dynasty with several widely spreading branches of the family in Austria, England, France, Germany and Naples.

Waddesdon Manor is in Buckinghamshire, England. Built for Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (1839-98) at the time of the story it was home to his great nephew James Armand Edmond de Rothschild and his wife Dorothy.

The Untersberg lies close to Salzburg in the Berchtesgaden Alps.

The attacks on the two Jewish cafés mentioned actually took place.

Barings: founded in 1762 and one of the oldest merchant banks in London.

Fu Manchu is a fictional Chinese master criminal who appears in several novels written by the British author Sax Rohmer (1883-1959).


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

The Albatross

"And, will we have the pleasure of meeting Friedrich any time soon?" asked Sybil with a laugh. At that, Edith grinned with unabashed pleasure, nodded her head enthusiastically in confirmation.

"Well, yes, as it happens, you most certainly will. Actually, he's meeting us both in Florence. We're staying at the Pensione Lucchesi, not far from the Ponte Vecchio and..."

"Nonsense darling, you must come and stay with all of us. The Ashingtons have lent us their villa up in the hills overlooking the Arno. From what they've told us and from the photographs they showed us earlier in the year, it looks absolutely divine" said Mary.

"Perhaps. Maybe. We'll have to see".

Mary's eyes narrowed. She looked quizzically at Edith.

"Well honestly darling. It really seems I can't do right for doing wrong. But of course, if you'd prefer to be cooped up in some stuffy hotel in…"  
"It's not that Mary. Not that at all. Your invitation… does it extend to Friedrich as well? Because if not, then I think it would be for the best if we…"  
"Of course it does. Why shouldn't it?"

"Well, even if it does, I'd have to speak to Friedrich about it. At the moment he's on his way back from Luxor where he's been working for the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo. There's an Egyptian archaeological symposium taking place in Florence. And then… then there's Max to consider. I mean how, and more importantly what, are we going to tell the children, about his health, about everything?"

"The truth" said Sybil peremptorily. "That's always the best policy. It's something Tom and I have always done".

"Well **you** would, wouldn't you" observed Mary drily.

"Meaning what, if you please?"

"Well…" Mary demurred.

"Well, nothing! Mary, if what you mean by that is that Edith and Friedrich aren't married and have a son, who suffers from an incurable disease, what of it? Whose business is it, except their own and, I suppose, now ours?" demanded Sybil her eyes flashing, daring Mary to challenge her practical, no-nonsense assessment of the situation as she saw it.

Suitably chastised, wisely, Mary chose to say nothing. There was, she reflected astutely, no point in antagonising Sybil, especially not when she got on her high horse about something, and, perhaps, after all, her youngest sister was right. Maybe, in the long run, whatever it cost, honesty was the best policy but before Mary could marshal her thoughts and say something, Sybil now rounded on Edith.

"And as for you, darling… Edith, surely it can't have escaped your notice, even out in the deserts of Iraq, that this is 1932, not 1900. Whether you and Friedrich are married makes not one whit of difference. At least not to me and Tom it doesn't". She looked pointedly at Mary, daring her to say otherwise.

"Well, no, I suppose it doesn't" said Mary. "Although it would be rather..."

"Would be rather what?" asked Edith.

"Well, it still might be for the best if you regularised your union".

At that, even Edith had had enough.

"Oh Mary, don't be so old-fashioned. Didn't I just try and explain to you all some of the difficulties we've encountered in that regard? But Friedrich and I, we want to "regularise our union" as you so quaintly put it. Not just for ourselves, but more importantly for Max, so there can be no problem when it comes to him inheriting Rosenberg, assuming that is that he…" Edith's voice tailed off; she fell silent.

Mary and Sybil both nodded their acquiescence. From what Edith had told them so far, there seemed very little prospect that Max would live long enough to inherit his father's estate in Austria.

"Anyway, when I found out that you were all travelling to Florence, and by the Rome Express, well, everything just seemed to fall into place. And, just so as you know in advance who you are meeting, here, this is Friedrich".

So saying Edith delved into her handbag and pulled out a sheaf of photographs. The first of which she proffered them showed an undeniably handsome man in uniform, standing by an aeroplane grimly emblazoned with a large skull on its fuselage. From the photograph, there was no mistaking that Friedrich was Max's father.

"Mein Vater. Albatros D. III" said Max proudly, pointing first to Friedrich, and then to the aircraft.

Edith nodded and smiled fondly at her son.

"He wants you to know that the aircraft in the photograph was an Albatross D. III. Not of course that it means much to me. Naturally, Max is very proud of his father".

"Naturally" echoed Mary.

Sybil also smiled encouragingly at her nephew, was sure that, with his obsession with all thing mechanical, Danny would be interested in the subject matter of the photograph. But, she remembered too that the albatross, after which the aeroplane had presumably been named, was considered by some to be a bird of ill-omen, and was also a metaphor for a burden to be carried as a penance.

"Friedrich told me it was taken almost at the end of the war. He was a pilot with the Austro-Hungarian air force" explained Edith. "And this one, this is from a little earlier, when he was being decorated by the late emperor. Friedrich was awarded the Military Merit Cross First Class with crossed swords for bravery. When he was old enough to understand what it was Friedrich gave the medal to Max".

The photograph showed Friedrich, again in uniform, but this time smartly saluting another man, also in military dress and wearing a kepi and a greatcoat with a deep fur collar, presumably the emperor of whom Edith had spoken, and who was flanked by a group of uniformed officers.

Edith said something to her son and the young boy nodded his head enthusiastically.

"Although they don't mean much to Friedrich, at least not now, what with the emperor dead and the empire having passed into history, the medal and Friedrich's pilot's badge both have pride of place in a cabinet in Max's bedroom. He's very proud indeed of his father's war record. And this… this one was taken shortly after we first met in Cairo, on a dig in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor in Egypt".

The photograph showed a group of people, all seated on chairs outside a flat roofed building of mud brick, with Friedrich and Edith smiling and sitting next to each other. Edith was sporting a safari helmet, shirt, riding breeches and long boots similar to those worn by Friedrich. Seeing that her attire had not gone unnoticed by Mary, at least to judge by the raise of her ever expressive eyebrows, Edith apparently felt some explanation was now called for.

"The breeches are much more practical when we're digging" she said quietly, her eyes downcast.

Mary nodded her acquiescence.

"I'm sure they are". Mary's ever expressive eyebrows twitched once again.

"And this… this is of the three of us, on the terrace at Rosenberg. Those are the Alps there in the background".

The picture once again showed Edith and Friedrich, this time with Max between them, all smiling, sitting on a low stone wall, and behind them, rising spectacularly in the distance, could be seen a range of mountains. Friedrich was smartly attired in an evening suit, Edith in a stunning dark coloured full length gown, wearing a magnificent diamond tiara, necklace, and matching ear rings, while young Max was dressed very much as he was now.

Mary eyed the tiara, necklace and ear rings with undisguised interest. Edith's tiara was truly splendid; both in its size and in the obvious quality of the stones of which it was composed, it quite eclipsed the one left to Mary by her late grandmother in her will and which, in comparison, would have looked both positively cheap and tawdry.

"The gown is by Mayer of Vienna. It's of midnight blue velvet on chiffon. The tiara… has been in Friedrich's family for years. As for the necklace and ear rings, well he gave me those when Max was born" said Edith modestly.

"How kind of him" observed Mary deprecatingly, remembering that Matthew, ever practical, had chosen to mark Robert's birth rather less personally, at least as far as she was concerned, with a scheme of extensive improvements to the buildings down at Home Farm, and which he said were long overdue: Robert's initials and the year being duly marked by a carved stone set in the west gable of the long barn.

"I've a whole album of photographs packed away in my suitcase. Perhaps you'd like to see those later, maybe after dinner, when we're on the train?" suggested Edith cautiously.

"Of course. That would be wonderful" said Sybil enthusiastically, but at the same time thinking just how easy it was for a picture to mask reality.

Taken at face value, the black and white photograph of Friedrich, Edith and Max was all that it purported to be: a father, mother and their handsome young son posing happily for the photographer, a snap of a contented, smiling, and, let it be said, undeniably wealthy, family, with no hint of the personal tragedy that had befallen them all, with the discovery that Max had haemophilia: their very own albatross.

But, if an albatross was a metaphor for a burden carried as a penance, then just what was it that Edith was expected to do penance for? A child borne out of wedlock? Perhaps, although in the divine scheme of things, that hardly seemed fair; but then neither did visiting the so-called sin of the parents upon the child.

Sybil had never had very much time for religion and some of the things she had experienced and witnessed in the comparatively recent bloody and violent birth pangs of Ireland had made her question the very existence of God. That young Max should suffer so now made her question even more the blind faith that some had in the existence of an omnipotent and omniscient deity. If there truly was a God, then Sybil found herself wondering how it was He could let young Max suffer so. And then, if Mama was truly a carrier of this dreadful disease would that explain... No don't even think about the possibility that...

"Sybil?" asked Edith gently and breaking into her sister's distant reverie.

"What? Oh, sorry, don't mind me, I was miles away!" Sybil looked up to find that Mary was still regarding intently the photograph of Friedrich, Edith and Max.

"Really? A whole album?" Mary said evenly a moment later, wondering if any of those other photographs would also bear mute witness to yet further examples of Friedrich's lavish generosity; forgetting momentarily that there were some things which money could not buy.

"Now, apart from still having to decide what we tell the children, there's something else too, which is somewhat delicate, but it's something I need to ask you both all the same. Have either of you ever had…"

But before Edith could even finish whatever it was she was about to say, from outside on the platform there came an audible shriek from Saiorse, followed by the sound of prolonged barking, at which young Max scrambled hastily to his feet.

"Frittie!" he yelled and, before Edith could make to stop him, shrugging off his mother's restraining hand, scattering her photographs, Max was shambling for the door just as fast as his injured knee would permit. Reaching the door, grabbing the handle, Max wrenched it open, and, limped out onto the platform, with his mother in hot pursuit, both her handbag and her photographs forgotten in her haste to catch up with her son.

Mary and Sybil exchanged mutually surprised glances.

"And just who the hell is Frittie?" asked Mary, as simultaneously both she and Sybil rose swiftly to their feet, gathered up Edith's discarded handbag along with the scattered photographs, and likewise hurriedly made for the now open door of the salle d'attente.

**Author's Note:**

Overlooking the River Arno, at the time of the story, the Pensione Lucchesi was one of the finest hotels in Florence, equipped with every modern comfort, including electricity, a lift, central heating and garaging! D. H. Lawrence stayed there in 1926 while writing "Lady Chatterley's Lover". And if you want to stay there, well, you can: the hotel is still in existence and is now called the Plaza Hotel Lucchesi.

The German Archaeological Institute in Cairo was founded in 1907.

The Albatros D. III was a highly successful bi-plane fighter aircraft used both by the Imperial German Army Air Service and the Austro-Hungarian Air Service during the Great War.

The Military Merit Cross was a decoration awarded in the territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. First awarded in 1849, following the collapse of the empire, it was rendered obsolete in 1918.

Established in 1927, Atelier-Mayer was an important Vienna fashion house whose clientele included members of Austrian, Liechtenstein and Swiss society.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

Fritz

Not that she would admit it to anyone of course, but to be truthful, what happened next was partly Saiorse's own fault.

Out here on the platform, in the warmth of the early afternoon sunshine, with the loading of the luggage van of the train now almost completed, people were, at last, finally beginning to board the waiting carriages, and where friends and relatives had come to see them off, making their heartfelt farewells.

Sitting on the all but empty luggage trolley, swinging her legs to and fro, Saiorse was most frightfully bored. She had been stuck here on the platform for some considerable time, while Danny and that unspeakable wretch Robert had gone off with Da and Uncle Matthew to look at the silly engine. Of course, if it hadn't been for her cousin Robert, Saiorse would quite willingly have gone along with her brother Danny, but not because she wanted to see the locomotive; she didn't, but, it would have meant time spent with her beloved Da.

And, it was because she had chosen not to go with her elder brother and her cousin, for what had seemed ages, although it had only been ten minutes or thereabouts, that Saiorse had been forced to endure what she viewed as the decidedly infantile company of both young Rebecca and her brother Simon, along with her own younger brother Bobby; the boys having done their level best to keep Rebecca happily amused, Simon by making growling noises and letting her play with his stupid teddy bear Oscar. But, with preparations now being made for the train to leave the station, in search of their seats, and accompanied by Aunt Mary's maid, Nanny Bridges had shepherded her three young charges onto the train, Rebecca, Bobby and finally Simon with soppy Oscar the teddy bear clutched firmly under his arm.

For her part, Saiorse had had more than enough of Rebecca, Simon and Bobby, and so, flatly refused to go with the others, declaring loftily that she would stay put, exactly where she was, seated on the luggage trolley, either until her Ma came out of the waiting room, or else her Da returned from looking at the engine.

"Have it your own way then Miss Saiorse" had said Nanny Bridges, deciding that she really had quite enough to do looking after Miss Rebecca, Master Simon and Master Bobby. And, after all, to be truthful, apart from the fact that Miss Saiorse was a handful, decidedly temperamental and likely as not, and for no good reason whatsoever, to suddenly go off half cock and flare up like a Roman Candle on Guy Fawkes' Night, the Branson children were not really her concern.

Saiorse sighed. Da and the others had still not returned from the engine and, as yet, there was no sign of Ma, nor indeed either of Aunt Mary or Aunt Edith, all of whom, Saiorse assumed, must still be closeted in the waiting room. Saiorse sighed again. Goodness knows what it was they could be finding to talk about in there for this length of the time. Yes, she was most definitely bored, and glancing about her, Saiorse looked for something to do to help her pass the time. It was then that she saw it and, because she was bored, and for no other reason than that, once having seen it, she now decided to investigate it further.

For his part, Fritz, too, was equally bored, but more than that he was also now distinctly annoyed: indeed, seriously so.

To begin with, he had been perfectly content. Curled up under the luggage trolley, where it was both cool and shady, as well as out of the way of all those nasty booted feet, patiently awaiting the return of his mistress and his young master, Fritz had soon drifted off to sleep, his slumbers made the more enjoyable by a particularly vivid dream of some of the savoury delights on offer in the enormous vaulted kitchen at Rosenberg, and to which Fritz himself was especially partial, assuming of course, that his young master could manage to avoid the ever vigilant eye of the cook Frau Eder and liberate some of the choicest delicacies for Fritz's own personal consumption.

Occasionally whimpering with undisguised pleasure, beneath the luggage trolley, Fritz was dreamily continuing to contemplate the competing merits of Wiener Schnitzel and Surschnitzel; or rather, at least he had been, until one of the ghastly children, seated on the luggage trolley just above his head, had disturbed his reverie and woken him up by making all kinds of ridiculous noises. Eventually, thankfully, those had at last stopped, the children had left shortly afterwards, or so Fritz assumed, and, that being the case, he had once more closed his eyes and was just drifting back to sleep when he felt a sharp tug on his lead.

Fritz opened one enquiring dark brown eye.

Having heard the sounds of contented snuffling coming from somewhere beneath the luggage trolley, Saiorse had followed the trail of the scarlet lead from where it had been tied to the handle, thence downwards and under the trolley, Kneeling on the platform, peering in, and seeing a slight movement in the shadows beneath the luggage trolley, at one and the same time, Saiorse jerked hard on the lead whereupon Fritz had opened his enquiring eye, and saw the young girl kneeling on the ground, looking in at him.

Until now, Saiorse had never encountered a dachshund, and for his part, Fritz had never encountered an Irish colleen, but he had had the misfortune to encounter children, and as a result, Fritz considered himself something of an expert on the breed.

With the exception of his young master, it was Fritz's considered canine opinion that whatever their parentage or nationality, children were nasty, naughty, noisy little things who patted, petted and pulled at him, when all Fritz really wanted was to be left alone. Accordingly, he eyed the now proffered, outstretched, open palm, along with the extended fingers, with a mixture of outright suspicion and downright hostility. From past experience, Fritz knew what they betokened, and, while he might be many things, preternaturally stupid was not one of them.

The outstretched pink palm moved closer still, was now but a hair's breadth away from the little dog's face.

At that, Fritz decided he had had enough and, given the circumstances, simply did what came most naturally to him. Beginning to bark noisily, Fritz the dachshund opened his little mouth, and nipped with all his might. At which point, and in quick succession, three things happened.

Saiorse screamed and hastily withdrew her hand, rather more shocked than hurt.

The door to the waiting room flew open.

And Fritz, in a desperate attempt, at least as he saw it, to escape the cloying and unwanted attention of Saiorse, now trotted out from beneath the luggage trolley as fast as his short, stubby, little legs would carry him, blissfully unaware of course that his leather lead was tied to the upright handle of the four-wheeled trolley.

The scarlet leash duly paid out, further and further, until it quickly reached its full extent, whereupon the lead then suddenly snagged, pulled tight, jerking Fritz to an abrupt halt causing him to sit down in surprise, hard on his little bottom, on the surface of the platform: leaving the taut leash stretched several inches above the ground, directly across the doorway to the station waiting room.

It was most unfortunate, indeed singularly so, that it was at this precise moment that the door to the salle d'attente now flew open and a sandy haired young boy hobbled headlong, as fast as he could, out onto the platform, shouting angrily at Saiorse in a language which she did not understand.

"Lass den Hund in Ruhe!" yelled Max angrily, his blue eyes smouldering, fixed glaringly, and to the exclusion of anything else, upon the dark-haired girl and who was the focus of his anger, so much so, that he was completely oblivious to the presence of the lead now stretched tautly across the doorway of the waiting room.

At the sound of both the rapidly approaching, albeit shambling, footsteps, and the angry shouted words, Saiorse had whirled about, indeed had half risen to her feet from off the luggage trolley, just as the young boy caught the toe of his right boot beneath the unseen leash, twisting his foot, and tripping him up. Pitching forward, Max sprawled headlong into Saiorse, knocking her off balance, the impact of the collision pushing her backwards over the trolley.

And, at the same time, from somewhere close behind the two of them, there came the frightened, horrified cry of a woman, the sound of which caused people standing nearby on the platform, and even some of those passengers who had already boarded the train, to turn their heads in startled amazement, to try and see what it was that had happened to occasion such a dramatic outburst.

"Ach mein Gott! Mein Schatzi! Nein! Max!" screamed Edith.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

A Well Mannered Boy

Mercifully Saiorse's fall backwards over the trolley was broken, not that she ever knew it, by several sacks stuffed full of shoddy lying on the platform and still awaiting loading onto the train, while in turn Max's tumble was stalled by none other than Saiorse herself. For a moment the two of them just lay there, Max on top of Saiorse, both too winded even to speak, and regarding each other with hostile eyes.

And, it was now that on seeing his young master that the indirect cause of all that had just happened dutifully trotted back across the platform to the luggage trolley, trailing in his wake his scarlet lead. There Fritz sat, with his head on one side, gazing thoughtfully at both Max and the girl, the antics of the latter merely serving to confirm the little dachshund's low opinion of children in general.

"Get off me you idiot" yelled Saiorse, struggling to rise and now at last recovering her power of speech. The sandy-haired boy said something to her which again she did not understand, by which time he was already being helped to his feet by none other than her very own Aunt Edith who had come hurriedly out of the waiting room, onto the platform, and into the full glare of the sun.

"Aunt Edith!" cried a delighted Saiorse sitting up and then struggling to her feet.

However, for once, her favourite aunt seemed neither to have seen nor even heard her, focussing her attention instead entirely upon the handsome, sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy now standing, slightly shaken, and evidently very contrite, and to whom her aunt was now speaking very rapidly in the same language used to Saiorse, which she did not understand and which, until today, she had never heard before.

But even though she could not understand a single word of what her aunt was saying, it was evident that Aunt Edith was very much displeased with the boy, whoever he was, whatever it was he had done, for, under her aunt's tirade, Saiorse saw him flush to the roots of his hair. Her own Da did that too sometimes, back home in Dublin, when Ma got just as annoyed with him as Aunt Edith evidently was with the young boy.

Standing behind her aunt, Saiorse now saw her mother and her Aunt Mary, although like Aunt Edith, neither of them seemed even to have noticed her. Instead, both seemed somewhat distracted, and were standing quietly in the open doorway of the waiting room, apparently observing the ongoing one-sided altercation between Aunt Edith and the blushing, sandy-haired boy.

Saiorse reached again for the scarlet lead, but her action did not go unnoticed by the sandy-haired boy who once again yelled at her in the language which she did not understand.

"Ich sage es dir nicht noch einmal! Lass den Hund in Ruhe!" shouted Max angrily, his blue eyes smouldering once again.

No boy, not even her elder brother Danny, had ever dared to speak to Saiorse so peremptorily, so when Max now grabbed at the leash, so startled was she that Saiorse found herself meekly submitting, relaxing her grip, and simply letting it go. Snatching the lead from her, Max curtly nodded his head, and then lowered himself gingerly down onto the luggage trolley, Saiorse noticing that he seemed unable to bend one of his knees properly, wondered if he had injured it when he fell.

"Ah! Da sind Sie ja! Fritz! Komm!"

Whereupon, on hearing the voice of his much-loved young master, with all thoughts of Wiener Schnitzel and Surschnitzel forgotten, at least for the time being, wagging his tail, Fritz stretched up and placed both his paws on the boy's bare knees while Max sat and fondled his head. A moment or two later and Fritz sat back down on the platform from where he gazed up, first at Max, and then at Saiorse, with a look upon his canine features that at one and the same time managed to betoken both a heartfelt and sincere affection and a heartfelt and contemptuous disdain.

Suddenly acutely conscious once again of what had just happened to her, Saiorse now sought to claim her mother's undivided attention and duly held out her right hand for inspection and Sybil's medical opinion. After all, as Saiorse was so fond of telling her school friends, Ma was a qualified nurse

"Ma? That boy's dog bit me! It's all his fault" exclaimed Saiorse, angrily pointing her finger accusingly at Max.

As if her thoughts were decidedly somewhere else, Sybil reacted unaccountably slowly to the sound of her daughter's raised voice, but she did, however absent-mindedly, now take hold of her daughter's outstretched hand, gave it the briefest, most cursory of looks, and then simply nodded her head. To be scrupulously fair, the only visible signs now of the brief encounter between Fritz's sharp little teeth and Saiorse's right hand were several rapidly fading small red marks. Fritz's bark was evidently much worse than his bite,

"Now, what have I told you before about playing with other people's dogs? You'll live darling. No harm done!" Ma smiled. Saiorse nodded mutely; knew that if her Ma said something would be all right then it would be and that there was nothing further to be said upon the matter.

"Who is he Ma?" whispered Saiorse, but before her mother could begin to explain, suddenly, Aunt Edith seemed to realise she too had an audience, for, with her hands now resting lightly on the young boy's shoulders, she broke off whatever it was she was saying, and turned to face Saiorse.

"Saiorse, darling! Did little Fritz bite your hand?" But when Saiorse made to answer, rather than looking at her hand, which Saiorse once again dutifully held up for inspection, Aunt Edith reached forward and instead fondled the head of the little brown dog now nestling contentedly in the arms of the sandy-haired boy. Fritz gave a contented, satisfied little bark and promptly closed his eyes.

"Frit…" Never having heard the name before, Saiorse made a short stab at trying to repeat what she thought her aunt had just said and then just as promptly gave up the attempt, simply nodded her head.

"I'm sorry darling, but Fritz isn't very good with strangers" said Aunt Edith.

Her tone was almost as dismissive as Ma's had been when Saiorse had held out her hand for her mother's inspection, so much so, that Saiorse found herself wondering what on earth could be the matter. It was now, but for no other reason than to try to draw the focus of everyone's attention back to herself, that Saiorse asked the predictable question.

"Aunt Edith? Who is he?" Saiorse nodded her head towards the sandy-haired boy.

"Who? He's your cousin Max. That's who he is" said Edith levelly, eyeing her niece cautiously, trying at the same time to gauge Saiorse's reaction to the clearly astonishing news so casually imparted to her by her aunt.

"My cousin?"

Her aunt nodded.

"Yes, that's right. Your cousin. Of course, you haven't met him before. He's my son. He's nine years old, and his name is Max".

"Max?" Her aunt nodded.

"That's right. Max".

"That's a funny name".

"He might think your name's funny".

"I don't see why. Anyway, it's not funny, it's Irish!" retorted Saiorse indignantly.

"Well, Max's name isn't funny either. In fact, it's Austrian. He comes from Austria. That's where we live".

While Saiorse mulled all this startling, new information over in her mind, her aunt chose to say something else to the boy - as Saiorse still thought of him - and once again in the language she did not understand.

"Aunt Edith?"  
"Yes, darling?"  
"What's that language you're speaking?"  
"It's German, darling. People speak German in Austria".

There was, remembered Saiorse, a huge map of the world on the back wall of the big classroom at her school, while at home in Blackrock, in his study, Da had a large book he called an atlas and, with Saiorse sitting on his knee, he had shown her the maps of some of the countries which it contained. But although Saiorse had heard of Australia, of America where grand mama's mother lived, even of Albania where there was king who also had a funny name too, Austria was unknown to her. That being so, it was at this point that Saiorse chose to ask the inevitable question.

"Aunt Edith?"  
"Yes darling?"  
"If… Max is… your son… and he's my cousin, does that… does that mean you've got married?"

Rather surprisingly, it was now Mary herself who chose to intervene, seeking to spare Edith any further embarrassment.

"Goodness! Is that the time? I think we should all start to…" she began.

"It's quite all right Mary. As Sybil said, perhaps honesty is the best policy".

Edith turned back to her niece.

"No, Saiorse. I haven't got married. Not yet anyway".

"Bridget Mahoney had a baby and she wasn't married. The nuns took her baby away. They said she was a sinner" said Saiorse dismissively.

At that, Sybil and Mary held their collective breathes.

"Really? Well, I suppose that makes me a sinner too then" offered Edith nervously.

"No it doesn't. That's silly. When I asked Da about Bridget Mahoney and Tommy Ryan, Da said it didn't really matter all that much. He said that if two people make a baby, what matters most is that they truly love each other, just like he loves Ma. And if Da says that, then it must be true!" ended Saiorse and with a ringing endorsement of her beloved father.

Sybil and Mary exchanged amused glances. That sounded just like the sort of thing darling Tom would say. For her part, on hearing her niece's frank assessment of the situation, at least as she saw it, Edith breathed a silent, heartfelt prayer of relief to whatever deity might happen be listening, earnestly thanking Him for giving her Tom Branson as her brother-in-law.

"Do you love Max's Da?" asked Saiorse suddenly.

"Saiorse!" exclaimed Sybil. Catching her younger sister's eye, Edith smiled broadly, shook her head. In dealing with this frankly spoken young girl, so much her parents' daughter, honesty clearly was the best policy.

"Yes, I do. I really do" said Edith,

"What's his name?"  
"He's called Friedrich".

"That's a…"  
"… funny name too" said Edith and laughed. "It's German for Frederick".

"What does he do, Frederick?"

"He's an archaeologist. Just like me. You remember I explained to you what that was, when you were at Downton?"

Saiorse nodded her head thoughtfully.

"Someone who digs up dead people and broken pots? At least that's what Aunt Mary said last Christmas. She thinks it's silly. She called them your old…"

"… relics?" suggested Edith helpfully, at the same time shooting a withering look at Mary who shook her head in sheer exasperation, and then raised her eyes heavenwards.

"That's right. Relics" said Saiorse promptly.

"Relics" repeated Edith woodenly, and shaking her head in utter disbelief at Mary.

"And you really love him?"

"Love who? Friedrich? Yes I do".

"Truly?"

"Just as much as your Da loves your Ma!" Edith smiled fondly at Saiorse; knew that the comparison of Friedrich and herself with Tom and Sybil would strike an immediate chord with her niece, and in that she was not to be disappointed.

"My Da and Ma love each other very much!"

"Yes, I know they do" said Edith. She grinned broadly at Sybil.

"I'm glad you love… Frederick like that" said Saiorse and then smiled warmly at her aunt. "That's nice".

"Yes, it is, rather". Edith smiled again. Thank God, she thought, for this frankly spoken child who was making this whole situation so much more bearable than even Edith herself would ever have thought possible.

"I hope someday that I find someone who loves me as much as my Da loves my Ma" said Saiorse earnestly.

"You will darling, of course you will!" said Edith, her eyes now shining. Impulsively, she hugged her young niece to her in a tight and tearful embrace.

"What's he called again?" asked Saiorse looking at Max, or so Edith naturally assumed.

"Max".

"No, not him. The little dog!"

"His name is Fritz. He's a dachshund. That's a German breed of dog" explained Edith patiently.

It was now, on hearing his mistress say his name that Fritz chose once again to open an enquiring brown eye. He yawned contentedly, revealing in the process a fine array of sharp, little teeth. Then, while Max tickled his tummy, Fritz closed his eyes, rolled on his side in his young master's arms, and gave out a series of short contented barks, clearly indicative of his complete satisfaction with all the undivided attention he was receiving, and causing both Max and Saiorse to laugh out loud.

"He looks..." began Saiorse, eyeing the little dog thoughtfully.

"Funny?" asked Edith with a laugh.

"No, not funny. Just ... different!"

"Some people call Fritz's breed sausage dogs... because they're long and shaped like one".

Saiorse eyed the little dog again and smiled.

"Yes, I do begin to see what you mean. He does look a bit like a sausage!" She laughed.

"Shhh!" Edith put her forefinger to her lips and grinned broadly at her niece. "Don't say that, at least not in his hearing. You'll hurt his feelings!" At that, she giggled, just like a schoolgirl, rather than an unmarried mother of a nine-year old boy, and then she spoke again to Max in German.

"Would you like to hold him?" asked Edith.

"May** I**?" Really?" asked Saiorse, her eyes shining eagerly.

"Of course you may".

Edith nodded to her son, who grinning, promptly offered Fritz to Saiorse. Taking the little dog from her cousin's outstretched arms, Saiorse hugged Fritz to her and then smiled shyly back at Max who, now having stood up, clicked his heels together, bowed gravely to her from the waist. He straightened up almost immediately, then winked, and smiled broadly at her.

Saiorse grinned and winked back. No-one had ever bowed to her before and Saiorse found herself rather hoping that Max would do so again.

And, as she cradled Fritz in her arms, while Max once again tickled the little dog's tummy, Saiorse looked thoughtfully at her cousin. It was odd, and singularly so. After all, she had only just met him, but already Saiorse found herself rather liking this handsome, well-mannered, new cousin of hers. She had never felt that way about either Robert or Simon. In fact, if the truth be told, apart from her adored elder brother Danny, she had never really had much time for boys either, thought them all rather silly and stupid. But now, Saiorse hoped the feelings she presently had for Max would last: hoped very much that they might even be returned.

**Author's Note:**

The king with the funny name, and to whom Saiorse is referring, was the delightfully named King Zog of Albania (1895-1961).

Probably the strangest monarch of the twentieth century, having proclaimed himself king, Zog ruled his impoverished country from 1928 until 1939 when Albania was invaded by Italy, and he then fled into exile, settling finally in France, where he died in 1961.

In 2012 his body was exhumed and, following a state funeral, reburied in the royal mausoleum in Tirana in Albania, this event coinciding with celebrations marking that country's centenary as an independent nation.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Boys Will Be Boys

Having left Edith, Mary and Sybil to their own devices, both Matthew and Tom remained singularly unaware of the drama which was now unfolding behind them, first in the salle d'attente and thereafter out on the platform.

By now, Matthew and Tom had finally reached the gleaming, cream lined, dark brown locomotive, where a column of black smoke, now thicker than ever, was still pouring forth out of its chimney. Trails of white steam momentarily lifted the safety valves and hissed from the piston chests. And, although neither Danny nor Robert spoke French, in fact probably only knew half a dozen words between them, by the time their fathers duly arrived, by means of sign language, it seemed that the two boys had somehow managed to elicit an invitation from the driver to come up onto the footplate.

"Da, Da, it's a Superpacific!" yelled Danny enthusiastically. Can we go up Da? Can we?" he asked excitedly of his father.

"May we, please father?" asked Robert politely, but for all that he could not hide the eager anticipation in his voice.

Matthew and Tom exchanged amused glances.

"And what if we said no?" chuckled Tom.

"Da! Yous wouldn't, would yous?"

Entering into the spirit of the occasion, Matthew grinned broadly.

"And just what would **your **darling mother have to say if she were here, Robert? You remember the awful fuss she made when she saw you riding on the roadmen's traction engine down in the village at Downton?"

Robert nodded his head slowly.

"Yes... but... but that... that was only because she was visiting old Mrs. Hughes at her cottage. Otherwise she wouldn't have seen what I was..." Robert blushed red, faltered, and then fell silent.

"Does that somehow make a difference?" asked Matthew gently. Tom saw the corners of his friend's mouth twitched expressively.

"Well she..." Robert looked hesitantly at Danny, who mouthed something silently to his cousin and nodded his head encouragingly.

"Well... well... she isn't here now, is she father?" asked Robert, his courage bolstered by the presence of his cousin and friend. He tried to keep his voice sounding matter-of-fact, hoping that might help to settle the issue; which, to Robert's intense amazement and delight, indeed it jolly well did.

Amused by Robert's decidedly pragmatic approach to the problem of his mother and her views of what was and was not proper, Tom and Matthew tried their very best to keep straight faces, but it was a hopeless task.

"No she isn't!" agreed Matthew with a laugh.

"And what your lady mother doesn't know about..." Tom chuckled.

Robert laughed too. He loved his Uncle Tom dearly, and for many reasons, the chiefest of which being that whenever his uncle was about, Robert's own father was always so happy and apt to enter into all kinds of fun and appropriately named tomfoolery of which Robert's aristocratic mother would decidedly not approve.

The sixth earl of Grantham, whose spoken French was more than adequate to do justice to the present situation, quickly established from the engine driver of the express that he was indeed agreeable for the two young boys to join him and his fireman up on the footplate for a few minutes and without further ado, the two boys scrambled excitedly up the steps and into the cab of the huge locomotive.

Once inside, rather self-consciously, Danny and Robert shook hands with the driver and his fireman, who by means of sign language, they established were named Pierre and François, both of them clad in the customary blue caps and overalls, their faces blackened with coal dust and soot, streaked with sweat, François wearing his regulation driver's goggles.

In front of them, Danny and Robert were now confronted with a bewildering display of glass dials and gauges, along with a mass of gleaming brass and copper pipe work. Beneath their feet, on the floor of the cab, were pools of sooty water mixed with coal dust. The air reeked of hot oil and grease and, from somewhere close at hand, there came the ever-present hiss of steam.

Here on the footplate, the heat from the engine was tremendous, almost overwhelming, which only intensified still further when Francois opened the door to the firebox, indicating to Robert that, if he wished he could help load in some of the coal briquettes from the tender.

The loaded shovel proved too much for Robert on his own, as it undoubtedly would have for Danny too, but together, the two boys managed successfully to load a couple of full shovels' worth of the dirty black briquettes into the fiery furnace of the grate, earning a thumbs up from Francois, who, indicated that if the boys, now wearing his and Pierre's dirty blue caps, were willing to stay on the footplate all the way to Paris, and shovel coal between them, then he could then go to sleep for the entire journey.

It was just at that precise moment, while Danny and Robert were carefully weighing up the merits of Francois's tongue-in-cheek suggestion, that from somewhere, seemingly close at hand, apparently from directly below the cab of the locomotive, down on the platform, a regal voice cut through the swirling cloud of steam and smoke on the footplate and broke into the two boys' reverie.

"Robert? Where are you?"

"Cripes!" Robert pulled a horrified face, mouthed "**Mama**" at his cousin, while young Danny tried his very best to stifle a fit of giggles.

Glancing down from their unrivalled vantage point up on the footplate, Danny now espied the rapidly approaching figures of both his aunt and his own mother. Evidently Aunt Mary was on the warpath, and had come in search of her errant, eldest son.

A moment or two later and his aunt, accompanied by Danny's mother both reached the engine where they stopped and looked about them.

"Where on earth can they have got to?" asked Mary slightly querulously.

"Well, Tom and Matthew did both say they were taking the boys down to see the engine. And this is the engine, so..." offered Sybil.

"Yes, thank you. Sybil. I am not completely stupid. And while I may not know about classes, wheel arrangements and all the other inconsequential details that Matthew and Robert seem to so much enjoy discussing, I am quite capable of recognising a steam engine when I see one".

"Well then they must be here somewhere. After all, they said..."

"Sybil, darling, I know what they **said** they were going to do, but when your husband and mine get together, they start behaving just like a pair of overgrown schoolboys and quite frankly anything is possible. I would have thought that by now even you of all people would have realised that".

From their steamy eerie, and thus privy to this entire conversation, Matthew and Tom were doing their very best not to laugh and betray themselves, when Robert suddenly took it upon himself to unilaterally break cover.

"I'm up here, Mama" replied a disembodied voice from somewhere far above Mary's head.

"And just where precisely is up here?" asked Mary in an imperious tone, looking all about her, and trying to pinpoint exactly from which direction her son's voice had come.

At that, in an attempt to be helpful, his face begrimed with coal dust and oil, Robert, still wearing Francois's dirty blue cap and now Pierre's goggles as well, stuck his fair-haired head through the side window of the cab of the enormous locomotive and, with a beaming smile, gazed down happily upon his horrified mother.

"Hello, Mama!" he called breezily down from his lofty perch on the footplate.

"Robert Crawley! What on earth are you doing up there? Dear God, just look at you! You're absolutely filthy! And what's that you're wearing on your head?" demanded Mary in a thoroughly appalled tone.

But before Robert could even begin to answer his mother's salvo of questions, let alone comply with her peremptory instruction, Mary had another equally burning question for her son.

"I have the distinct feeling that I shall regret asking you this Robert Crawley, but just where is your father?"

"Oh, I'm up here too, Mary". So saying, Matthew stuck his head through the same window as his son and grinned broadly down at his horrified wife. But then, oddly enough, instead of Mary now venting her annoyance on Matthew, she seemed to suddenly relent, smiled broadly up at her husband and son, and simply shook her head in mock disbelief.

Sybil, who by now had come to stand by her eldest sister, grinned equally broadly as she looked first at Mary, and then up at both Robert and Matthew.

"One for the album I think! Now, don't move, either of you" she called cheerfully, as from down below them on the platform, Sybil hurriedly focused her younger son Bobby's Beau Brownie on the grinning faces of the sixth earl of Grantham and his equally contented elder son and heir.

"Sybil! Don't you dare! Whatever will Mama think?" pleaded Mary. But by then it was too late. Sybil had already pressed the shutter.

"And if you two are up there, then I suppose Tom and..." began Sybil.

"Hello Ma!" sang out Danny happily. "Da and me were up here too!"

Still wearing Pierre's cap, and like his cousin grinning broadly, his face equally begrimed with coal dust and oil, on hearing his mother's voice, young Danny Branson now thrust his head out through the same cab window as both his uncle Matthew and his cousin Robert, to be followed a moment later by the smiling face of his equally laughing father.

"There, what did I tell you?" asked Mary, but then, at the sight of Matthew, Tom, Robert and Danny grinning like a quartet of contented chimpanzees, Mary countess of Grantham found she could contain herself no longer, and broke into peals of ringing laughter.

"Honestly! Just look at the four of you!"

"Smile for the camera!" laughed Sybil, as once again she pressed the shutter.

Up on the footplate, over the heads of their sons, Matthew and Tom now exchanged astonished, questioning glances.

"Well" said Matthew, nodding his head down towards where Mary and Sybil were still standing chatting and laughing on the platform below, "that went off rather better than expected. After all, Mary's not normally that forgiving of our antics, now is she?"

Tom shook his head.

"No, she isn't. So, I find myself asking why" he said thoughtfully.

**Author's Note:**

Available in five different colour combinations, the Beau Brownie camera was in production between 1930 -33. It differed little from the popular Box Brownie camera only insofar as it possessed a new doublet lens.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Au Départ!

A short while later, with Robert and Danny now firmly back down on the surface of the platform, along with Matthew and Tom, the boys - indeed all four of them - made their happy farewells to both Pierre and François. To the obvious amusement of Sybil, and watched by a now equally smiling Mary, the engine crew of the Rome Express posed happily for a couple of commemorative photographs, firstly with Matthew and Robert, and then with Tom and Danny, before finally giving their enginemen's caps to the two younger boys as lasting mementos of their impromptu visit to the footplate of the locomotive.

Thereafter, Tom and Matthew, along with Danny and Robert, the faces of all four of them begrimed and streaked with sweat, with the two boys still wearing the dirty, greasy caps of the engine crew, chatting animatedly about all that they had seen on the footplate of the locomotive, set off back up the platform towards their carriage, leaving the countess of Grantham and her youngest sister to bring up the rear, shaking their heads in utter disbelief at the antics of their men folk. Robert had even gone so far as to shyly proffer his last gobstopper to his mother, which Mary had graciously accepted, although she did not go as far as to put in her mouth.

"Honestly, men!" exclaimed Mary shaking her head, as they weaved their way steadfastly through the milieu of passengers continuing to board the waiting train. "I've absolutely no idea what I am going to do with this awful thing!" Mary glanced askance at the gobstopper now held betwixt the thumb and forefinger of her gloved hand. "Of course, I blame it all on the General Strike".

Sybil looked questioningly at her eldest sister.

"The General Strike? But Mary that was years ago!"

"Don't you remember darling, I wrote and told you... how Matthew drove an engine at York, to try and help keep the trains running?"  
"Oh that" said Sybil dismissively.

"Yes, **that**!" said Mary emphatically. "At the time, Matthew even had the gall to suggest that I might like to help out too, working as a waitress in a restaurant car. I mean, I ask you, can you see me working as a waitress in a restaurant car?"

Sybil smiled broadly. Indeed, the thought of dear Mary **working anywhere** was quite impossible to contemplate.

"Matthew said if Prince George of Russia could serve as a Special Constable up in London and Lady Eleanor Fortescue work for the LNER as a waitress then we ought to do our bit too! Mind you, I suppose if the Bolsheviks had murdered most of your own family by throwing them alive down a mineshaft, you'd want to do your bit to prevent revolution breaking out here. Personally, I didn't see the need myself, and in any event it was all over in a matter of days".

Sybil nodded, remembered Tom having told her what had happened to some of the relatives of the last Tsar who also had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

"Oh really! Sybil! Just look at the pair of them now! Whatever would granny have said?"

Ahead of them, Matthew and Tom had laughingly purloined their sons' newly acquired railwaymen's caps and despite the two boys' voluble entreaties were evidently refusing to give them back; were instead now wearing them themselves.

"Did you say **men**?" asked Sybil shaking her head equally expressively, before catching her sister's eye, whereupon the two women dissolved into laughter.

"Something's amused those two!" observed Matthew without turning round.

"Well, it's not us for sure", remarked Tom, as all four of them continued walking down the platform to where Edith, Max and Saiorse were standing by the steps of their carriage.

Now some distance behind them, Mary nodded her head emphatically in the direction of the group of people now gathered on the platform by the far end of their carriage. Sybil followed her sister's steadfast gaze to where, still cradling little Fritz snugly in her arms, Saiorse, followed in turn by Max, who with some difficulty was stoically negotiating the steps of the carriage, and with Edith bringing up the rear of the little gathering, were both in the process of boarding the train.

Having reached the others, Tom, Matthew, Danny and Robert were standing close by; the two boys now chatting to their aunt, gesticulating wildly, obviously telling her enthusiastically all about their trip down to see the engine. Edith was nodding her head, albeit disinterestedly, could be seen at the same time watching Max negotiating the carriage steps, about whom she obviously then said something to both Danny and Robert, as Sybil saw the two boys glance up at Max, who, at length, having at last negotiated the steps was standing just inside the door, and who in turn was now looking down at his two cousins, nodding his head, and smiling. A moment later and Max's two cousins had joined him in the doorway to the carriage.

"I wonder if Edith has said anything at all, to Saiorse, to any of them, I mean…about Max's condition?" asked Mary.

"I shouldn't think so, at least not yet. After all, there really hasn't been any time for her to do so. I expect she'll probably say something to them on the train, but, it goes without saying, Tom, Matthew… they'll have to be told, whether by Edith… or by the two of us. All of them, apart from Bobby and Rebecca, who are really much too young to understand what it means, And, sooner rather than later" said Sybil thoughtfully.

Mary turned back to Sybil.

"Yes, I suppose you're right" she said softly, "Oh, Sybil! That poor little boy. And Edith… Poor, poor Edith". Mary's voice suddenly faltered. Evidently in need of some form of support, she rested her gloved hand on the side of the carriage adjacent to her, leaned against it, singularly unaware that at the same time she had let go of Robert's last gobstopper which now fell disregarded to the ground and was lost among the ballast.

"I know darling..." began Sybil but now her own pent-up feelings suddenly overwhelmed her. "Oh, Mary!"

At the sight of her ever practical, no-nonsense youngest sister giving way to her emotions, Mary could contain herself no longer and also burst into tears. Sobbing, the two sisters fell into a tearful embrace. That Max's tragic plight had moved them both was all too obvious. That apart, Sybil could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times, of which this was one, that Mary had openly given way to her emotions in private: never as now, in public. For her to do so was surely an indication of just how distressed she truly was. That apart, as far as Sybil was aware, in the past, when all three of them were younger, Mary had never once expressed the slightest concern for Edith's well-being. Indeed, quite the reverse.

"It's all right, Mary. Really, it is. Well, no, it isn't, but you know what I mean nonetheless".

At her kindly spoken words, as they broke apart, Sybil saw her sister nod her head, swallow hard, then straighten up in a valiant attempt to regain her customary composure, assume her habitual, glacial mask of seeming indifference to the world and all its woes, as though any overt show of emotion on her part was to be avoided at all costs, fearful that it would be construed as a sign of weakness rather than simply for what it undoubtedly was: heartfelt compassion.

"Thank you, for always being so sweet" said Mary gently, enfolding Sybil's hand within her own.

"Mary, you know there's really nothing wrong in letting your feelings show" said Sybil gently.

Dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief, Mary nodded her head, seemingly in agreement with what Sybil had just said.

"I know you're right, darling. But then, you see, that's just not me. That's not who I am. I'm not like you, or dearest Tom! I never have been and it's rather too late for me to start changing now! Even darling Matthew… for all his usual reserve and sang froid… he's far more open about showing precisely just how he feels, even in public. Do you know… no, of course, you won't, well, at the end of last summer, when the annual cricket match between the house and the village was over, when the house team won, darling Matthew was so overcome that he kissed me openly in front of everyone, in the marquee! I mean, could you imagine dearest Papa ever doing anything like that to Mama? And then, when it fell to me to present the prizes, when it came to me presenting Matthew, as the captain of the victorious side, with the winner's trophy, why, he did it again!"

"Did what again?" asked Sybil mischievously.

"Why, kissed me again in public, darling. That's what. Everyone in the marquee cheered, even the boys. I was utterly mortified!" Seeing Sybil grinning at her, Mary realised, too late that Sybil knew precisely to what it was she had been referring.

"Sybil! Honestly!" Mary grimaced.

"Honestly, nothing, Mary. Tom did just the same to me, in the pub in Blackrock, when his team won at skittles".

"Skittles? Tom kissed you? In a public house?"

Sybil nodded her head enthusiastically.

"Oh, Sybil, really! Although, in fairness, I must concede that Matthew's not quite as relaxed about that sort of thing as I know both you and Tom are! And I am equally aware that when you all come over from Ireland, Matthew and Tom do rather enjoy paying their surreptitious visits down to the Grantham Arms in the village. They both seem to think that I don't know about them. But of course, I do!"

Sybil's eyes widened perceptibly.

"You do?"

"Yes, of course I do. Sybil, darling, I'm not completely stupid, whatever you may all think of me. Apart from the smell of liquor, I always know when Matthew and Tom have been down there, because Matthew becomes rather…"

"Rather what?"  
"Well, you know…"

"No, I don't".

Mary lowered her voice.

"Well, Matthew becomes… well… he becomes rather… amorous".

"Oh, you mean randy! Tom's just the same" said Sybil flatly.

"Sybil! Honestly!" Mary exclaimed, doing her very best and then failing miserably in her endeavours to maintain a straight face. She broke into a broad grin and beamed happily at her youngest sister.

"That being so" continued Mary breezily, "I suppose it's probably just as well that as the countess of Grantham I am not given to frequenting public houses with my husband, be it the Grantham Arms or indeed any other similar such establishment. Otherwise, bearing in mind what happened in the marquee after the cricket match, and how Matthew behaves after he's been drinking, Heaven knows what he might be tempted to try and do in public!"

Mary grinned happily again at Sybil, who chuckled with laughter, as for a brief moment, she found herself reminded instantly of one particular scene from _The Sheik_ by Edith Maude Hull, although to be scrupulously truthful, even if it was quite possible for her to imagine her sister Mary as Lady Diana Mayo, given his colouring, casting darling Matthew in the guise of a dark-haired, dark-skinned Arab chieftain intent on seduction and rape, stretched even Sybil's mental powers of creativity.

"Mind you", continued Mary, "when he's with the boys, Matthew's just as ready to act the fool as much as he is when he's with darling Tom. After all, you saw what they were both up to a few moments ago on the platform. Not that I'm criticising, but, I just can't imagine dearest Papa ever behaving like that, can you?"

Sybil smiled again, shook her head. After all, what Mary was saying came as no surprise to Sybil; was indeed perfectly true. Ever since Matthew had asked Tom to be his Best Man back in 1920, the two of them had become the closest of friends and when they were all at Downton it was very noticeable to Sybil, that, in the company of both the adult Bransons, but especially that of Tom, Matthew was so much more at ease.

It was now, as they resumed walking down the platform towards the others, Sybil saw Mary's eyes suddenly glisten, her facial expression change, as once more she let her mask of seeming indifference slip to display her innermost feelings.

"Oh Sybil! That poor, poor little boy! God knows how Edith must be feeling deep down inside, knowing that young Max inherited his awful condition from her. And when the doctors can do so very little for him, I can't begin to imagine how utterly bereft she must be. I wonder…"

"Wonder what?"  
"I wonder what else it was she wanted to say to us… before Max disappeared off outside?"

Sybil smiled wanly again at her eldest sister.

"Oh, I expect it was something about how she was going to break the news … to Mama".

"You mean about her and Friedrich and dear little Max of course. And… what it is that's wrong with him?"  
"Yes, I expect it was something like that" said Sybil laconically, realising that even now, Mary had still not fully comprehended the potential implications of Max's condition for both her and Sybil… and for all of their children.

Just before they reached Matthew and Tom, Mary paused once more, and turned to Sybil.

"Darling, we've both got to be strong in all of this. Not just for Edith I mean, but also for that poor little boy, for us as well. I don't know how I'm going to break this to Matthew".

"Nor I to Tom".

Further down the platform, Tom and Matthew watched the approach of their wives, Matthew with some sense of trepidation. While Mary would never make a scene in public, she was, as he knew well, not at all tolerant of what she saw as his laissez-faire attitude towards his responsibilities as earl of Grantham, including how he conducted himself in public.

"Now the boys are out of the way, stand by for the reprimand" he muttered.

Tom smiled at his friend and brother-in-law.

"Do you have any particular last request?" asked Tom with a grin.  
"Don't joke!" laughed Matthew. "You know what Mary's like!"

Tom smiled.

"Yes, but somehow, I think this time, you might be rather wide of the mark" whispered Tom mindful of how Mary had reacted but a few minutes earlier on finding all four of them up on the footplate of the locomotive, sensing that a marked change had come over her. And, once again, Tom found himself wondering why that might be so.

In the thirteen years which had elapsed since Tom and Sybil's marriage, the former chauffeur and his decidedly aristocratic sister-in-law had managed to develop an exceptional modus vivendi. And, while from time to time they might carp and snap at each other, ever since what had happened at the Shelbourne Hotel and that as far back as June 1919, both Tom and Mary had come to love and respect each other dearly, each perceiving the other's true worth.

Not that he had ever dared to try to do so of course, but Tom was only too well aware that he would have had no more luck in recruiting Mary to the cause of Socialism than he had had in trying to explain the policies of Sinn Féin to his late father-in-law. And while Tom Branson firmly still believed in a society where position was achieved through merit rather than by birthright, he had come to realise that a truly classless society could never be realised except by force, and not even then.

Whatever his late father-in-law might once have thought of him, Tom had never been a revolutionary: the brutal excesses of the Russian Revolution, the continuing repression in Soviet Russia, let alone what had happened in Ireland during the Civil War, were all as much anathema to Tom as they had been to Robert Crawley, as indeed they were to so many others. In one sense or another, Tom had come to realise long since that there had to be some form of hierarchical structure in society, of servants and masters, whether they were chauffeurs and earls, workers and commissars, or even cub reporters and deputy editors of newspapers.

Tom also knew that Mary was her own worst enemy; hidebound by convention, still far too concerned with what other people might think of her, reacting to individuals and situations as she thought befitted her position as countess of Grantham, rather than instead trusting to her own innate good sense and better judgement.

And, knowing Mary as well as he did now, Tom was certain that something in her had now changed. Exactly what that was, he could not say, but deduced that it must have something to do with whatever it was Edith had wished to impart to her two sisters out of the earshot of both Matthew and himself. Seeing Sybil's tear-stained face only merely served to confirm his suspicions.

Mary drew level with both Tom and Matthew. Walking slowly forward, she reached up and kissed Matthew lightly on the cheek; then surprised herself by doing exactly the same to Tom, causing both men in turn to smile at her in wonderment.

"What on earth was that for?" asked Matthew with a broad grin, and kissing Mary soundly back, while beside him Tom hugged Sybil to him in a warm embrace.

"Isn't a woman permitted to kiss her husband in public?" asked Mary with a gentle laugh.

"Of course. But I thought you said..."

"I say many things, my darling, most of no consequence, but as to why?"

Mary's expressive dark eyes flicked from her husband's face briefly to that of her dearly loved brother-in-law and then back again. "For simply being you; the both of you" she said softly.

"What's wrong, love?" asked Tom of Sybil, ever solicitous for his wife's welfare.

"I'll tell you about it later" whispered Sybil and then with her next remark promptly changed the subject. "I think, it's time we boarded the train" she said with an audible sniff; whereupon, as if by way of confirmation, from the far end of the platform there now came a shrill blast on a whistle.

The Rome Express was ready to depart.

**Author's Note:**

During the General Strike, fearing a Bolshevik style revolution, many members of the British upper and middle classes tried to help keep basic services running, undertaking all kinds of manual jobs, including driving trains, trams and buses, many with the minimum of training.

LNER: the London and North Eastern Railway.

The brutal murder of several other members of the Russian Imperial Family, including three of Prince George's brothers, at Alapaevsk in Siberia in July 1918, took place the day after the shooting of the Tsar and his family at Ekaterinburg, and happened in the manner Mary describes.

_The Sheikh_, by Edith Maude Hull, was published in 1919. The novel was the basis for the famous silent film of the same name starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres and which premiered in 1921.


End file.
